Participants at this year’s Boao Forum for Asia are getting a rare treat. 22 masterpieces from early 20th century Chinese painters Xu Beihong, Zhang Daqian and Qi Baishi are on display to guests from all over Asia. 

Xu Beihong’s eldest grandson traveled all the way from Beijing to the coastal town of Boao, in Hainan Province, to share his grandfather's art.

Worth over 100 million yuan, these paintings were borrowed from private collectors who were happy to share their collections with a wider audience. 

Born in the late 19th century, Xu Beihong was regarded as one of the first Chinese artists to blend western oil painting techniques with Chinese traditional brush painting. Xu Xiaoyang says his grandfather was a pioneer and artistic revolutionary. 

Xu Beihong was best known for his Chinese ink paintings of horses. His unique talent can be seen in the precision he used to depict bones, muscles, joints and physical proportions in his works. Accurately capturing horses is widely considered a very difficult skill when it comes to brush painting.

Records show that Xu Beihong enjoyed great support from art collectors across Asia. Between 1939 and 1942, he held solo exhibitions in Singapore, India and Malayasia to help raise funds for the war relief effort in China. More than 70 years later, his works still remain significant. 

Zheng Xiaojing, curator of the Xu Beihong Art Salon, said that “the theme at this year’s Boao Forum is globalization. To my understanding, globalization is a process of blending, of communication – that’s what Mr. Xu Beihong was doing his entire life. He bridged the gap between Chinese and Western art, used everything good and discarded everything that wasn't.”

Zheng said the paintings will be exhibited in Japan and Europe over the next couple of years.