Valuable Spring (Youth), a painting on show from NAMOC's collection.[Photo by Jiang Dong/China Daily]

Wang, the curator of the current series, says she was "moved to tears" when visiting the exhibition back then.

She says that Feng is hailed as a man of eminence in cultural circles, but being modest about his talent he may not have wanted to be seen as an icon "worshipped at the sacred temple of art".

Feng's paintings are exuberant with poetic delicacy. He abandoned the sophisticated brushwork of classic Chinese paintings, but retained the liubai (leaving blank areas) approach. He adopted from Western oil paintings the styles of simple, straightforward composition and sketchy, clean-cut strokes.

His works either depict the tranquil, delightful moments of life, no matter how insignificant they look, or gently critique social issues, such as spoiling children and the income gap. His contribution to China's inkbrush art ushered in a modern genre, making it reality-oriented and, as such, more relevant to people.

Feng developed this distinctive language of painting, however, when he thought he had hit a dead end with oil painting.