Seeking Plum Blossoms in the Snow (hanging scroll)

Huang Shen was born in Ninghua, Fujian province and mainly lived in Yangzhou. His courtesy name was Gongmao or Gongshou and literary name Yingpiaozi. Huang was accomplished in human figure painting. In his early years, he learned his craft from Shangguan Zhou, a painter from the same place with him. But in recent years, some scholars hold the view that Huang Shen never had a “special teacher.” He painted with a wild-cursive-script style, free, unrestrained, grand, and imposing. The themes of his paintings mainly came from stories about the immortals and the life of literati and scholar-officials, but he also painted boat trackers and fishermen occasionally. Huang was also skilled in flower-and-bird and landscape painting and was renowned as one of the “Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou.”