Shanzi Zhang, known as Tiger fan (pseudonym), was born in Sichuan, China. Zhang excelled at painting landscape, flowers, birds and wild animals. He loved portraying tigers in particular. Zhang has a famous brother, Daqian Zhang (1899-1983), who is a renowned Chinese artist in the 20th century. One of their well-known team projects is a set of twelve scroll paintings showing different tiger’s postures. Zhang is recognized as a patriotic artist. In 1903, he studied in Japan and participated in the activities of Tongmenghui (an organization found to establish Republic of China, organized by Yat-sen Sun (1866-1925) and Jiaoren Song (1882-1913) in Tokyo, Japan, in 1905). After returning to China, he remained active in revolutionary movements and served as a presidential consultative committee member during the beginning of Republic of China. After the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, Zhang’s painting is full with ideas of anti-Japanese national salvation and a strong nationalism. He helped to raise funds for Chinese army by selling his paintings in Europe and United State. In 1940, he died in Chongqing, China after returning from a fundraising trip.
