Zheng Shengtian (b. 1938, Henan) is an artist, writer and curator currently based in Vancouver, Canada.
Zheng graduated in 1958 from the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts (now called the China Academy of Art) where he worked for over 30 years. One of the first artists sent abroad by the Chinese government after the Cultural Revolution, Zheng was a visiting professor at the University of Minnesota, USA, from 1981 to 1983, and travelled in Europe and North America to study art and art educational practices. Upon his return to the China Academy of Art, Zheng became the chair of the Oil Painting Department and head of international exchange programmes. Having brought back to China a large number of slides of art taken during his overseas travels, Zheng lectured widely, greatly augmenting the understanding of international art in China. Between 1984 and 1989 Zheng supported the development of numerous art-related activities including the establishment of the World’s Art Research Society in Zhejiang, and publicationssuch as World Art News and The Wall: Art Exchange News.
In 1990, Zheng immigrated to Canada, where he continues his research and curatorial practice, as well as publishing widely. He is currently the Managing Editor of Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, the first English-language magazine on contemporary Chinese art.
Selections of Zheng’s collection of documentary materials from the 1980s are presented below. These materials include the list of books at the library of the China Academy of Art, including those that greatly influenced art students at the Academy at the time; documents relating to various international events in which Zheng participated, providing evidence of early exchanges between the Chinese and international art worlds; and original catalogues of important exhibitions of Western art that took place in China in the late 1970s and 1980s.