Next-gen Village Tiger Painters

In the mobile internet era, a new generation of farmer painters armed with cutting-edge technology and innovative ideas is poised to bring tiger paintings to a wider and untapped market.

The gentle wind across the green land stretching into the horizon signals that the cold winter has come to an end at the village where paintings of tigers hang in the rows of courtyards. The tranquil village, where most locals are surnamed Wang, is Wanggongzhuang in Beiguan Town, Minquan County, central China’s Henan Province.

Wanggongzhuang is dubbed “China’s number one tiger painting village” because 800 out of the 1,300 villagers there are skilled in painting tigers. Among them, two are members of the China Artists

Association, and more than 50 members of the Henan Artists Association. Another 100 painters from other places have also settled in the village.

According to statistics from the local government, an average of around 90,000 tiger paintings produced in the village are sold each year to foreign markets. Although most of the sold paintings were about six feet in length, huge paintings depicting hundreds of tigers each are not uncommon. About 40 percent of the works created by Wanggongzhuang villagers are exported to countries that honor the tiger, such as Japan, Bangladesh, and South Korea.

Rise of the Tiger-painting Industry

In the 1950s and 1960s, only a few villagers in Wanggongzhuang painted during the slack farming season. In those days, a handful of local people painted New Year pictures with traditional Chinese themes such as the Kitchen God and the Door God to be sold during Spring Festival to earn extra money. In the 1980s and 1990s, after the beginning of China’s historic reform and opening up, several villagers led local farmers to commit to brushes and begin learning to paint tigers. The village gradually developed fame for its paintings of the animal.

Why tigers? Wang Jianmin, one of the first tiger painters in the village who is now 54 years old, believes the subject relates to the folk customs of eastern Henan. Many regard the tiger as the king of all the beasts with the magic power to drive out evil spirits. The custom of hanging tiger paintings has persisted since ancient times in the region.

Wang Jianmin is regarded by fellow villagers as a pioneer of the