In visiting Zhang Hongtu’s art studio in Woodside, in the New York borough of Queens, one is struck by his gentle and lively insight. It is very frustrating for a listener because his English is so heavily accented, but what is understandable of his speech is well worth noting. In a wide-ranging discussion, he touched on humor, the cathartic value of defacing the iconic image of a dictator, China’s imperiled environment, the dangers of political art in that country, and his feelings as a new immigrant. He showed slides of a number of his works, which all, in some way, reference China. Zhang Hongtu came to the USA from the People’s Republic of China, in 1982. He had grown up as an outsider. As Silberberg puts it, “the family’s religious and economic background increasingly became a serious political burden in the officially atheistic state.” [1] His family was committed to the government-suspected Muslim religious minority, and his father actively worked to spread the teachings of his faith. They were also businesspeople in a regime that discouraged entrepreneurship. The fact that his family was successfully financially made them a target of frightening government oppression [2] . In China, he studied art, so when he arrived in the USA, his technical skills were well developed. It seems that he was allowed to leave China with only thirty dollars [3] , which may not have been even enough for the taxi from the airport. He told us that he found a job as a construction worker within two days. He was not lonely when he came to the US, he said, in spite of being in a strange country with no money [4] . His website indicates that he also studied art for another four years in New York [5] . Every work that we looked at related somehow to China. Either it showed the round and serenely smiling face of Chairman Mao, or a scene that evoked a Chinese landscape painting, or monkeys or fish that appeared Asian, but everything referred somehow to China. This was apparently quite deliberate. His painting, he said, reflects his inner self, and his inner self is very determined to critique China’s policies. In preparing for this visit, I was fascinated by the manner in which he used techniques that reminded me of famous Impressionists but in pictures of unfamiliar places. I was interested in what prompted him to begin blending elements from eastern and western art. He told us that he observes that no art is truly pure. He pointed out that every artist and piece of art reflects a mixture of influences from other cultures, inspiration from other works of art, and that many include a variety of techniques. Thus, his mixing of eastern subjects is, to him, a natural progression. I see this as a modern version of what happened in the 1700s. During that general period, European art influences, for example, the idea of accurate portraiture, entered China, as we learned in researching the personal art selections of the Emperor Quianglong [6] . Zhang Hongtu brings eastern influences into the west, in the same way. I was also intrigued with why he was interested in the three specific artists whose styles show up so often in his recent work: Cezanne, Monet, and Van Gogh. He told us that these artists were his personal icons. I also observe