Dǒng Xīwén

Place: Keqiao District Of Shaoxing Prefecture In Zhejiang

Born: 1914

Death: 1973

Biography:

Dong Xiwen was a Chinese painter born in 1914 in the Keqiao district of Shaoxing prefecture in Zhejiang, China. He graduated from Huilan High School in Hangzhou and studied civil engineering at Zhejiang University. He then attended the Suzhou Art Institute and the Hangzhou National Art Institute. After graduating in 1939, he attended the Paris Art Institute at Hanoi, Vietnam for half a year. Between 1942 and 1946, he worked as a researcher at the Dunhuang Art Research Institute, copying wall paintings. In 1946, he began to teach at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beiping. He sympathized with the student political activities of the Chinese Communist Party and participated in activities leading to the takeover of Beiping. In July 1949, he participated in painting the first portrait of Mao Zedong at Tiananmen. In December of the same year, he joined the Communist Party. Between 1952 and 1953, he painted his best-known work, The Founding Ceremony of the Nation. Dong was a professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts and led the drafting of the relief sculptures for the Monument to the People's Heroes. He was also a member of the second Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. In 1962, he set up a studio in the Academy with Wu Zuoren and Luo Gongliu. In 1969, he was politically persecuted and made to perform labor. He died of cancer on 8 January 1973.