This catalogue illustrates the achievements to date of the Chinese realist oil painter, Xu Yanzhou. Xu was the youngest oil painter to publish a monograph of his art work in China, and had a solo exhibition at the China Art Gallery. The topics of Xu’s paintings are diverse, ranging from realistic rural paintings, captivating female portraits, imaginative paintings which are close to science fiction and large scale paintings of animals. He incorporates modern ideas into his work, questioning life and society. The changes in Xu’s art, his choice of topics and styles, follow changes in his own experiences. Through complex compositions and use of colour, Xu expresses his conceptual and even surrealist thinking, and his belief in xieyi to be the ultimate beauty in art.