Jiang Zhaohe is called father of modern Chinese figure painting for introducing Western pictorial realism, notably three-dimensionality and modelled form, into traditional Chinese brushwork.
His paintings, which at a distance look like pencil drawings, are actually carried out in fine washes of ink on Chinese xuan paper, a highly unforgiving medium. Apart from reforming the traditional technique, Jiang is most celebrated for his commitment to recording the suffering of the deprived and oppressed.
His masterpiece Refugees, portraying men, women and children displaced by the Sino-Japanese war, upset the Japanese occupiers so much that it was confiscated from exhibition twice.