Love for home shines through

The exhibition shows a typed recommendation letter for Yan in French and signed by Liu Haisu in his own hand, in which the latter described Yan's work as of "Eastern particularity" and "highly esteemed and appreciated".

Liu Haisu wrote that, Yan, to further improve his skills, went to France to draw inspiration from European arts to meld them harmoniously with the Eastern forms, a skill "which he was certainly able to master".

Yan's studies in France were fruitful. He enrolled in the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts, the time-honored school in Paris. His graduation thesis writing was halted during World War II, but he managed to finish his studies after the war ended.

"Yan's work shows his solid disciplines in school and a figurative method to master," says Wu Weishan, a sculptor in his own right. "He treated his subjects as delicately as Auguste Rodin and as expressively as Antoine Bourdelle," he adds.

Walking Alone, a work on display, sets a fine example. Shao Xiaofeng, a researcher at the National Art Museum of China, says the nude statue shows the results of the academic training Yan received in Paris.

"By giving a definition to her soft, well-fit silhouette, he hails the inner energy of life," Shao says, adding the depiction of a figure walking alone also reveals the confusion and loneliness of Yan in a foreign land.