Well-established painter and educator Yuan Yunsheng has been pioneering new developments in painting since his school days at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in the 1950s. 

His best-known works include Ode to Life, a wall painting commissioned for the Beijing Capital International Airport in the early 1980s, which depicts people of the Dai ethnic group in Yunnan province celebrating the traditional "Water Splashing" festival. 

A love of natural landscape and a compassion for people at the grassroots level are one key motif of Yuan's work, such as Recollection of a Water Town. 

Yuan produced the painting in 1962, a graduation work which shows the hustle and bustle of a booming water town in the Jiangnan area. 

After a three-year restoration, Yuan donated the painting to his alma mater, which is now at the center of an exhibition at the Art Museum of Central Academy of Fine Arts until May 1. On show are also preparatory drawings and sketches for the painting.