Plum Blossom

Born in 1936 in Fenghuang, Hunan, Liu Dapao, formerly known as Liu Gongxin, belonged to a well-known family of fabric-dyeing artisans that spanned five generations. Because of his temperament, Liu was nicknamed “Cannon.” At the age of 12, he dropped out of school to work at the family dye workshop which is still running to this day and is famously known as Liu Cannon’s Printing and Dyeing Workshop. As Liu befriended Huang Yongyu, being from the same Xiangxi prefecture, he collected two of Huang’s paintings. According to the catalog raisonné Huang Yongyu and Us, Huang was in support of Liu’s dye workshop and gifted Plum Blossoms.