In commemoration of Li Ruinian’s centennial birthday, an exhibition about his donation is currently on display at Hall 1 since July 6 until July 16, 2010. The exhibition comprises a total of nearly 100 works including oil paintings and sketches as the first combination of his works. In addition, his wife Liao Xianzhuang, his son Li Dun and his daughter Li Diya will donate his masterpieces in different periods to the National Art Museum of China. 

Li Ruinian was born in Tianjin in 1910 and studied in the Art College of Peking University from Wei Tianlin since 1928. What Li Ruinian learned about the oil painting is the compromising style between the classic realistic technique and the modern drawing method. He started to learn painting in Europe since 1933, first in Belgium Royal Academy of Fine Arts and then National Advanced School of Fine Arts in Paris, France. The experience of overseas study helped lay a solid foundation for his later achievements.  Li Ruinian was engaged in art education from 1939 to 1985. His cooperative teaching with Xu Beihong, Huang Xianzhi and Lv Sibai in Central University in the early 1940s and 1950s and subsequent teaching activities with Xu Beihong in National Beijing Art College (China Central Academy of Fine Arts) were his most brilliant moment in his art teaching career. In addition to teaching, he also assumed the office of member of Discipline Assessment Group of the Academic Degrees Committee of State Council, vice-president of China Artists Association—Beijing Branch, Executive Director of Beijing Federation of Literary and Art Circles and member of Beijing Municipal Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

Since the establishment of New China in 1949, Li Ruinian along with all the other artists entered a new social and cultural atmosphere. He continued the path of going deep into life and observing the nature. His works reveal abundant sensibility to the nature and the feeling to the new era and integrate his passion through the conscientious object modeling. The artist combines the traditional Chinese painting with the western style and creates an elegant and refreshing artistic conception.

Li Ruinian is an representative in the Chinese artistic history in the 20th century especially in the field of the Chinese oil painting. He is skilled in landscape oil paintings, revealing the aesthetic characteristic of simplicity and sentiment. The exhibits include a number of his masterpieces, such as Struggle (1944), New village of Shaping (1944), Sunflower (1960), Courtyard (1979), The Taihu Lake (1984) and Life (1984).

In addition to oil painting creation, Li Ruinian has been engaged in artistic education. He taught in the Central University with the cooperation with Xu Beihong, Huang Xianzhi and Lv Sibai from the 1940s and the 1950s and then in the Central Academy of Fine Arts. He was also member of the Discipline Assessment Group of the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council, vice-president of the Beijing Branch of the China Artists Association, Executive Director of Beijing Federation of Literary and Art Circles and member of Beijing Municipal Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.