Gao Xingjian was born in 1940 in Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province, China. He is best known for being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2000, but his career also reflects the close connection between painting and writing in Chinese culture. Gao embodies the ideal of the well-rounded literati scholar, moving fluidly between literature, philosophy, and visual art.

His painting style can be characterised as xieyi (“writing/sketching the idea”), which allows him to create subtle, intuitive works that shift between figurative and abstract expression. Interested in literature and painting from a young age, Gao received a degree in French from the Beijing Language Institute in 1962.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Gao worked in Beijing a...