 u Youhan wears a gray jacket like most of his peers born in 1940s.
“Art should reflect life, [and it needs to] be responsible to the individual and others,” says the 63-year-old Shanghai-born artist. Yu possesses a Chinese intellectual’s historic view on China that makes the audience realize both personal and collective experiences in his works.
 Now retired from his teaching post at the Shanghai Arts Craft College, Yu talks about his most internationally recognized works, a long running series of Mao Zedong portraits painted in the pop art style.“Why did I paint Mao? I did so in part as a memorial to my past political life. I borrowed the method of Pop art and elements from Chinese folk art to represent an ordinary Mao in a way of resilience, a little humor, and few critical remarks, all mixed with a little admiration. I am proud that he is no longer a sacrosanct god in my paintings; he becomes an ordinary person.”
As Yu explains, in today’s China everyone busies himself or herself with thoughts of making money. During the 1980s people were focused on improving the economy and political climate. Yu was a young man when the Cultural Revolution broke out. All of this has greatly affected him. His political life is spontaneously revealed in his paintings. He found his abstract paintings were remote from real world visuals; he expected to be closer to society.“I extended from abstract art to realism," he says. "But my realism is not about material details, what I have is the macro review about history and society. I hope my works distance from reality, like seeing China from the moon."
Yu says he was inspired by Pop art because it supported techniques similar to his artistic methods. Yu says he saw artworks from Andy Warhol, Richard Hamilton and other Pop artists.“I realized that the character could be painted like that: one stroke to outline, that is enough,” he says.
 He began his pop-art painting series after 1988. His imagery included simple stools, colorful portraits of the Renminbi and political icons. He came across singer Whitney Houston’s CD when visiting Wang Ziwei, a student of his, and found Whitney to be very interesting. He returned home and painted Whitney according to her cover image but felt as if something were missing. He added an image of Mao on the left and “Mao with Whitney”(1989) was complete.
Yu’s Mao paintings are simple yet playful and possess characteristics found in traditional Chinese folk art. Folk patterns such as the phoenix and peony surround Mao portraits on a bright Chinese red background in “The Life of Mao” (1990). As Huang Ziping says:“Wolfger Pohlmann [renowned contemporary art curator and author] discreetly considered Yu’s art as 'Chinese styled pop art.' He copies iconic posters used by the government using colorful imagery which appear to be mocking the figures at first glance. His art is also similar to American hard-edged painting of abstract art. It has techniques found in designing advertisements, according to the commercial aesthetics. More importantly, it is skillfully filled with folk elements. His art has everything that we expect to find, it is an entirely compositive expression under the cultural circumstances after 1989.”
Yu explains his work this way:“Paul Cezanne’s eyes are the best filter in the world. They can exquisitely catch the change of colors in nature. But his world does not have a regional difference. I do not copy everything from Western art. My work also follows a Chinese style.” Yu says he finds the inspiration for the patterns seen in his paintings from Chinese traditional bed covers and traditional Chinese peasant painting.  His Mao paintings are lighthearted. Mao is covered with flowers and appears joyful and lively rather than oppressive.
In many ways, Yu considers himself a“self-taught painter.” Although he had a gift for drawing as a child, there were limited opportunities for art education when he was growing up, he says. It wasn’t until 1965, after four years in the military, that Yu was given the chance to take the University entrance exam. Soon after, he enrolled in the Central Academy of Arts and Crafts in Beijing. He studied the design of Chinaware in the Imperial Palace during his time there because the painting department had stopped recruiting students. The college completely stopped teaching by the end of the Cultural Revolution.
Yu says he did not give up his dream of painting. Instead, he used the posters of the Cultural Revolution as his primary focus and inspiration. Yu did not favor the Soviet realist style that was promoted in China at the time. Instead, he preferred the works of Henri Matisse, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cezanne.
In 1973, he began teaching art at Shanghai Arts Craft College, and continued to teach there until his retirement 30 years later. He painted while he taught, learning new styles such as Impressionism and American Abstract Expressionism. He says he was influenced greatly by the Abstract Art Exhibition held in Beijing in 1982 by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. And by the early 1980s, he started experimenting in abstract painting.
He created the “Circle” series in 1985, expressing his emotions through his abstract paintings. Three of Yu’s works from the “Circle” series were featured in Beijing’s “No-U-Turn” exhibition of 1989, which was considered the most significant turning point for Chinese contemporary art. Yu traveled south during the exhibition and received most of the news about the show from friends. “My works, with some other paintings, were put on the third floor, in a quiet corner," he says. "The performance artworks on the first floor were noisy and dramatic.”
Yu’s Mao paintings from the 1990’s entered the international art market throughvia the Hanart TZ Gallery in Hong Kong. His works were also represented at the 45th Venice Biennale, “China Avant-Garde” exhibition (which traveled to Germany, Holland and Britain in 1993), and the 22nd Sao Paulo International Art Biennale in 1994. Yu quickly rose to the top as one of the most important Chinese Political Pop artists.
In 1996, Yu created the “Ah! Us”series featuring Emperor Qin’s terra-cotta warriors and horses alongside common people in modern China. In 2002, Yu and his colleagues spent their holiday in Yimengshan, Shandong Province — it would inspire his future works, the “Yimengshan” and “Traditional Garden” series.
Almost all of his Mao paintings have been sold to Western buyers. Five works from his “Circle” series were purchased by Beijing’s Guy & Myriam Ullens Foundation. Today,  Yu’s works range in price from $1,000 to $80,000. Yu signed with ShanghART Gallery in Shanghai in 2002.
Yu believes that Chinese modern art should be “rational,” “critical” and “creative.” These three elements are his trinity: first one must analyze what Chinese contemporary art lacks, then they must critically evaluate it and finally they should create the new art. “It is a pity that few Chinese artists hold these three elements. Many of today’s artists paint while looking at curators and collectors for approval," he says. "They nod and they go on.”
The commercial atmosphere of the current art scene does not look like it is changing any time soon, he says. Yu’s own art career has spanned decades and he says he has no intention of slowing down, just yet. This Christmas, over 10 of his paintings (including some his newest works) will be exhibited in Brussels at the China Today Gallery.
translated by Wei Ying
Top Image：The Life of Mao
Image1：Chairman Mao celebrating his birthday
Image2：Playing Ping-pong
Image3：Round
Image4：Trees and Water
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