De-Jinn Shiy was born in Sichuan, China in 1923. During his time in Hangzhou Nation College, he studied under Lin Fengmian. n 1948, he graduated from the Hangzhou National College of Art. After graduation, he returned to Taiwan to teach at the Provincial Chiayi High School.

In 1957, he held his first solo exhibition in Taipei. Shiy accepted an invitation of the U.S. State Department to visit U.S. with Liao Chi Chun in 1962. Afterward, he went to Paris to study for three years and successively held solo exhibitions in Washington, D.C., Paris and Hong Kong.

After returning to Taiwan, he taught at TamJang University and National Taiwan Normal University. In 1975, he won the Chungshan Literary Prize Award.

Recent solo exhibition:

Ode to Formosa : Exhibition in Commemoration of the 30th Anniversary of the Deceased Master Shiy De-jinnwas held at National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in 2011.

Born in Szechwan, De-Jinn Shiy learned under Pang Syun-Chin, who had studied in France. He also followed Matisse's color palette and experimented with Pop Art, Op Art, and Hard Edge.

But he returned to country style with which he felt most comfortable with later period in his career. When he moved to Taiwan, he started to use folk matters and state of livelihood as his subjects in paintings.

He united western and eastern media and styles to take Chinese art to a new dimension. He had held many exhibitions.