Her older brother, Yang Shounan [zh], was a poet, editor, government official, and industrialist.

As a young artist she won medals from presidents Yuan Shikai and Xu Shichang.

[6] Yang was commissioned to make life-sized portraits of Manchu emperors and empresses for the Palace Museum of Mukden in the 1920s.

In 1936,[10] she presented an exhibit of Chinese art at the Canadian Jubilee Exposition in Vancouver.

[23] Yang wrote a memoir, Sketch of Players, in the 1970s, including her oft-told anecdote about sending a pacifist poem to Adolf Hitler.