Qiu Shihua was born in 1940 in Zizhong, Sichuan Province, China. In 1962 he graduated from the Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts, oil painting department, where he was trained in Chinese traditional painting and Russian Social Realist painting. Throughout the Cultural Revolution and until 1984 he worked as a poster painter for a theatre in Tongchuan. He lives and works in Beijing, Shenzhen and San Francisco. Qiu Shihua has participated in several international solo exhibitions and group shows, including: Shanshui – Poetry Without Sound? Landscape in Chinese Contemporary Art, Kunstmuseum Luzern, Switzerland (2011); Mahjong: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Sigg Collection, The University of California, Berkeley Art Museum, Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, USA (2008); Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai, China (2004); Qiu Shihua, The New York Kunsthalle, New York, USA; 2nd Berlin Biennale (2001); d'APERTutto, La Biennale di Venezia, 48 Esposizione Internationale d'Arte, Venice, Italy (1999); and Qiu Shi-hua, Basel Kunsthalle, Basel, Switzerland (1999).