Yang Yanping was born in 1934 in Nanjing, China. She graduated with a degree in architecture from Qinghua in 1958 and transferred to the Art Designing Section at the Beijing Art Company in 1966. While a member of the Oil Painting Section at the Beijing Art Company Yang Yanping studied traditional Chinese painting on her own. She joined the Fine Arts department of the Chinese History Museum in 1975 and became a member of the Beijing Art Academy in 1980.
In 1986, Yang Yanping was awarded a fellowship for culture and education exchange with China at SUNY at Stony Brook, New York, and has lived there since. She has exhibited widely since 1978 in China, Japan, the United States, France and Austria, making a total of five major exhibitions in China, one in Japan, three in America, and one each in France and Austria.
Yang Yanping's paintings are part of the numerous private and public collections in China, the United States, and in countries throughout Europe and Asia, including the British Museum in London, Asian Art Museum in San Fransico, and the National Museum of China in Beijing.
Her many honors include the prestigious Zanders Art Presentation Calendar in honor of the United Nation's 50th Anniversary. Critical articles have been written on the works of Yang Yanping by such noted scholars and critics as James Cahill (1926-2014), Michael Sullivan (1916-2013), Lucy Lim (1940-2007), Joan Lebold Cohen, and Jessica Rawson. (from appraisal 2/10/01, Returning Rains Fine Art)
