(b Xiaoshan County, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, 1840; d 1896). Chinese painter. He was the most famous of a group of artists known as the Four Rens, who dominated late-19th-century painting in Shanghai (see SHANGHAI SCHOOL), the others being Ren Yi’s teacher, REN XIONG, Ren Xiong’s brother, Ren Xun (1835–93), and his son, Ren Yu (1853–1901). One account of Ren Yi’s early life claims that he was taught painting by his father, a country rice merchant who supplemented the family income by painting portraits. When his father died c. 1855 Ren Yi went to Shanghai. His move was more than geographic: he exchanged a traditional rural existence for life in a port city with a rapidly developing commercial centre open to Westerners. Perhaps the best-known anecdote about Ren Yi’s early career concerns his first meeting with Ren Xiong, to whom he was not related. One day Ren Xiong was shown several fan paintings on which his signature had been forged. He traced the fans to the shop where Ren Yi was working and ordered five fans of ‘beautiful ladies’ painted by Ren Weichang (Xiong). When he collected the fans he asked Ren Yi if he knew the painter. Ren Yi replied that they had been painted by his uncle. ‘Then, I am your uncle’, Ren Xiong said, and asked the young painter to return with him to Suzhou (Jiangsu Province) as his student.

• Ren Yi
  • China, §V, 3(vii)(d): Figure painting: Qing and after
  • Shanghai, §2: Art life
  • collaboration
    • Ren Xiong
  • groups and movements
    • Shanghai school
  • works
    • China, §V, 3(v)(e): Painting: Animals, birds and plants
    • China, §V, 3(viii)(b): Historical development of portrait painting