Les Amis des Beaux-Arts organize a masterclass with internationally renowned painter Yan Pei-Ming, in dialogue with Frédérique Goerig-Hergott, Director of Dijon Museums, curator and exhibition organizer.

Yan Pei-Ming was born into a working-class family in Shanghai in 1960. He began painting at a very early age and proved to be a talented artist. At the age of 20, he left his homeland to study at the Beaux-Arts in France. In his early years, Yan Pei-Ming painted with an economy of color, favoring monumental formats. He first became known for his portraits of anonymous people and icons. At the same time, since the mid-1990s, he has been reviving the tradition of history painting, following in the footsteps of painters such as Goya, David, Delacroix and Géricault. Color gradually took on greater importance in his pictorial style. Subjects diversify. Today, Yan Pei-Ming is one of the leading artists on the international scene. He has been invited to major solo exhibitions: Hommage à mon père at the Shanghai Art Museum (2005), Yan Pei-Ming: Life Souvenir at the Des Moines Art Center in the United States (2008), Les Funérailles de Mona Lisa at the Musée du Louvre (2009), Un enterrement à Shanghai at the Musée d'Orsay (2019), Painting Histories at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence (2023)...

Frédérique Goerig-Hergott is appointed Director of Dijon Museums in January 2022, following a career at Colmar's Musée Unterlinden as Chief Curator, responsible for the modern and contemporary art collections. In this capacity, she oversaw the extension of the Musée Unterlinden by architects Herzog & de Meuron (2012-2015), and curated numerous exhibitions, including Adel Abdessemed - Décor (2012), Otto Dix, le Retable d'Issenheim (2016), Rodchenko - Musée Pouchkine Collection (2017), Corpus Baselitz (2018), Yan Pei-Ming - Au nom du père (2021), Fabienne Verdier - Le chant des étoiles (2022) and a tour of the collections in Germany and China (2014). She has also published numerous articles and books on twentieth- and twenty-first-century artists and the Musée Unterlinden collections.

Photo credits : Yan Pei-Ming © Lewis Fleury and Frédérique Goerig-Hergott © Direction des musées de Dijon - Philippe Bornier