Huang Gongwang (1269-1354) was a painter born during the late Song Dynasty in Changshu, Jiangsu. He is the oldest of the "Four Masters of the Yuan Dynasty."

Huang was born Lu Jian, and after serving as an official he acted as a Taoist priest. He spent his last years in the Fu-ch'un mountains near Hangzhou devoting himself to Taoism. It was here that in ca. 1350 he completed one of his most famous, and arguably greatest works, Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains.

In art he rejected the landscape conventions of his era's Academy, but is regarded as one of the great literati painters. He had two styles. One was dependent on the use of purple and the other preferred black ink. Like all other Chinese scholar-officials of his era he w...