The trip was arranged for a meeting with Yan's daughter who wished to donate his works to his home country.

The fruits of this journey — 40 works from Yan's oeuvre and a donation by his family — are on show at Shaping Techniques From Within, at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing. Part of the works are on show until Sunday and the rest through to Aug 14.

The exhibition provides insights into those clues in his work: his deep love for family, the modern art movements he was exposed to while in France, and the Chinese cultural roots that kept him warm and nurtured him while living far away from home.

Yan left for France in 1938, making him a member of groups of Chinese youngsters studying in Europe, a phenomenon of the first half of the 20th century.

Yan, however, did not find fame as much as his contemporaries in Europe — Xu Beihong, Liu Kaiqu and Wu Guanzhong — to name only a few who later became luminous figures and helped shape the Chinese art scene.

Before that, Yan had attended Shanghai Fine Art School, greatly inspired by the words of Liu Haisu, the school head and artist of repute, that "the mission of the school is to research on the latest developments of European art and meanwhile, to rediscover the treasures in the palace of our own culture, and blaze new trails for the revival of Chinese arts and culture".

Finishing his initial art education at home and teaching at his alma mater for some years, Yan thus traveled to France to follow the tenets of Liu Haisu.