Born in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, Yan began studying painting in 1909, founded the Suzhou Art Academy along with Zhu Shijie in 1922 and went to Paris in 1929, enrolling in the L'Ecole Superieure Nationale des Beaux Arts, making him, along with Xu Beihong and Sanyu, one of the earliest Chinese artists to study abroad in France.

While in Europe, Yan assembled a collection of plaster casts of famous European sculptures, which totalled as many as 500 pieces, which he shipped home to be used at the Academy.

The unofficial Shanghai art scene was dominated by the styles of Yan Wenliang and Liu Haisu, which trend persisted even during the later years of the Cultural Revolution.

It was also practiced and inherited by his students from the Suzhou Art Academy, and many self-taught artists of the 'lost generation', those born in the 1950s who had been denied formal schooling by the Cultural Revolution.

Among the pioneers of Chinese modern art, four men earned the title of "The Four Great Academy Presidents": Lin Fengmian, Xu Beihong, Liu Haisu, and Yan Wenliang.

A panoramic depiction of an old-fashioned Jiangnan kitchen scene, its lifelike imagery and balanced colors reflect the artist's grasp of perspective, light and shade.

These artists had been labelled by painter Peng Xunqin as the Republic of China's four greatest in their position, and all four were spearheads of the national modern art movement of the time.

Art critic Shang Hui once said, 'Yan Wenliang was one of the very few Chinese artists to have a truly firm comprehension of impressionism while at the same time being a Courbet-influenced Europe-taught realist oil painter.