Biography

Born in Guangdong, China in 1942, Tinyan Chan was the youngest in a family of artists and received his earliest training from his eldest brother, a noted portrait painter in Hong Kong. A pivotal exhibition of work by German artist Adolph Menzel first exposed him to Western art, setting him on a path that led through a position as chief textile designer in Nigeria and further study in Paris before he immigrated to Canada in 1968 to begin his career as a professional artist. It was the dramatic shift of the Canadian seasons, spring flowers, summer landscapes, autumn colour, and winter snow, that became the defining subject of his work. He has spent the decades since capturing that same seasonal beauty, finding limitless inspiration in each season's distinct character.

Chan trained at the Mid-Southern Academy of Fine Arts and the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in China before further study at L'École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In the decades since, he has held more than one hundred solo exhibitions across major cities in North America, became the first Chinese artist elected a senior member of the Federation of Canadian Artists in 1983, and received the Federation's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011.