Artist paints a picture of his times

"That was the most important thing I learned from him."

Wei passed away in 2009.Equipped with an intensified understanding of Wei's art and life, Yu has curated two exhibitions in the past decade — one dedicated to Wei's drawing and the other to his comics.

Now Yu has curated a third exhibition to mark the 100th anniversary of Wei's birth this year. Titled Depicting the Times, the show through to Friday at the Art Museum of CAFA is a retrospective of Wei's artistic development over years marked by his commitment, wit and social concerns.

The title of the exhibition, Yu says, is derived from how Wei used to call himself, "a man who holds painting brushes", which reveals the simple, modest side of him and meanwhile, his firm belief that art should reveal the times and address people's needs.

The exhibition traces Wei's evolution in painting. In the early stage, he focused on a realist approach to depicting socialist construction after the founding of the People's Republic of China and the lives of factory workers and farmers.