Wei Tianlin was born in Fenyang, Shanxi province. Studied in the Painting Department of Tokyo School of Fine Arts, Tianlin became a researcher there after his graduation. When he’s back to China in 1928, he was appointed as the Arts Department head of the Lyon Sino-French Institute (Institut Franco-Chinois de Lyon) and Western Painting Department head of the Beiping University. During the onset of the civil war between CCP and KMT, he moved to the communist territory and worked as a professor in North China University. After 1949 he worked as the head of Beijing Normal University’s Art Design Department, vice president of Beijing Normal University of Arts and as a professor in Central Academy of Art and Design.