Hsia Yan was born in 1932, in Hunan, China. In 1949 he came to Taiwan together with the army and studied painting from master artist Lee Chun-Shan. Hsia together with other Lee’s pupils founded the “Ton Fan Group”, and the “Eight Great Outlaws”, to challenge traditional forms of art. Later, he moved to Paris to study Western art and started a series of works full of personal characteristics named “Fuzzy People”. In 1968 he moved to New York where he was influenced by photorealism that was the vogue at that time. In the paintings, he accurately captured the streets of New York and employed long exposure photography effects to depict bustling pedestrians. In 1992, Hsia Yan came back to Taiwan to explore new approaches to traditional myths and folk art, and developed metal sculptures of “Fuzzy People” series. In 2002, he moved to Shanghai. Hsia believes that, “the real art exchange happens when the artist extends the tentacles of one culture to the other foreign culture, but he himself remains tightly tied to his home country.”