Cheng Shifa (Chinese: 程十髮; pinyin: Chéng Shífà; 1921 – June 17, 2007) was a Chinese calligrapher, painter, and cartoonist.
Cheng was born in a small Chinese village outside the city of Shanghai in 1921,[1] in modern Fengjing township.[2] He originally studied medicine before deciding to focus on art. He graduated from Shanghai Art College in 1941.[1] Cheng staged his first art show in 1942.[1]
Cheng was originally known as an illustrator. He initially gained attention for illustrating short stories for Lu Xun, who is considered to be one of the 20th century's best known Chinese satirists.[1] However, Cheng ultimately became best known for his traditional brush paintings of minority ethnic groups from Yunnan, a southwestern border province known for its ethnic diversity.[1] Cheng's work stressed the unity and connection between different ethnic groups, winning Cheng awards from the government.[1]
Cheng Shifa was exposed to Chinese painting and calligraphy at an early age, but he was more impressed by folk art than by Chinese painting, graduating from the Chinese Painting Department of the Shanghai Fine Arts College in 1941,[3] and holding a solo exhibition at the Shanghai Daxin Company in 1942.[4] After 1949, he was engaged in art popularization work. In 1952,[4] he joined the Shanghai People's Fine Arts Publishing House (East China People's Fine Arts Publishing House) as a creative writer, and in 1956, he took part in the preparatory work for the Shanghai Painting Academy and served as a painter. Since then, his artistic vision has been expanding, "taking the ancient and modern Chinese and foreign methods and transforming them", and he is unique in figures, flowers and birds. He also has attainments in comic strips, yearbooks, illustrations and illustrations. He is also an expert in calligraphy, which is inspired by the wooden slips of the Qin and Han dynasties. His paintings were influenced by Chen Laolian in his early years, and in his later years, the artist mostly painted birds and flowers.