Qiu Deshu grew up in the former Shanghai French Concession, where he attended after-school art classes at the Luwan District Children's Palace.
Between 1970 and 1973, Qiu attended the Shanghai Art School (上海美術專科學校) for "worker training", during which he created political cartoons with his classmates and teachers.
[3] Turning away from Socialist Realism, the Caocao group rejected the use of ink painting as a political gesture of nationalism.
However, the authorities soon shut down the exhibition and condemned it, along with the Grass Group itself, as a "typical example of bourgeois liberalism in the Luwan District Cultural System.
In 2008, he was honored with a major solo exhibition at the Shanghai Art Museum, and he remains one of the most influential and active contemporary ink artists today.