广东开平人，中国现代著名油画家、版画家、美术教育家。1936年考入杭州艺术专科学校,自学木刻。1938年到延安，就读鲁迅艺术文学院美术系。1955至1958年赴苏联列宾美术学院专修油画。历任中央美术学院教授、绘画系主任、副院长，中国美术家协会理事、常务理事，中国美术家协会书记处书记、全国文联委员。2003年被文化部授予造型艺术成就奖。
Born in Kaiping, Guangdong, he is a famous modern Chinese oil painter, printmaker and art educator. In 1936, he was admitted to Hangzhou Art College and taught himself woodcut. In 1938, he went to Yan'an and studied at the Fine Arts Department of Lu Xun Academy of Arts and Literature. From 1955 to 1958, he went to the Repin Academy of Fine Arts in the Soviet Union to specialize in oil painting. He served as a professor, director of the Painting Department and vice president of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, a director and executive director of the China Artists Association, a secretary of the Secretariat of the China Artists Association and a member of the National Federation of Literary and Art Circles. In 2003, he was awarded the Plastic Arts Achievement Award by the Ministry of Culture.
