The amount of media coverage in the mainland Chinese Press in the last 5 to 7 years in the form of newspapers, art magazines, tv programs, art-fairs communication, museum and exhibition catalogues etc on this artist is indeed too much to keep track of. Suffice to say he continues to hog the news in terms of his art, his poetry and his championing of Chinese language and culture. Concerning the location of his art in the art historical development of China, if Lin FengMin is the Father of Modern Art, then Shi Hu belongs to the generation that follows immediately after. This period also coincides with the accelerated opening up of China's economy, which in the last quarter of the 20th Century, had leap-frogged from that of an agrarian one to become one of the biggest maufacturers of consumer products in the world. In parallel with China's adoption of the Western economic development model, Shi Hu in his art has almost single-handedly attempted to assimiliate many elements of the major Western art movements of the last century (such as post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Expressionism, Abstraction and large-scale mural painting) into his depiction of Chinese painting.

Born in 1942 in Hebei into a literary family where he was brought up surrounded by Chinese literature and culture. As a Red Guard, he was in charge of producing propaganda posters. At different times, he trained and taught art at various Beijing and Zhejiang art institutes, before working as art director at People's Fine Arts Publishing House in Beijing. In 1977 he set off on an extensive tour of 13 African countries and upon his return to China created waves with his series of African sketches. By 1982 he had earned a solo exhibition at the Nanjing Art Museum, and starting from 1987 was introduced to an international audience with his exhibition in Hong Kong. Thereafter came a rapid sequence of very successful overseas exhibitions in Hong Kong, Switzerland,USA, Canada, Singapore, Macau and Jakarta. During the aftermath of the Tiananmen incident, he moved to Macau and painted from there, while his art prospers throughout South-East Asia.

From 1993 to 2000 Shi hu began a process of "returning" to his motherland, in terms of his art with a series of prominent art shows in Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai and Dalian. In 1998, HongKong University Museum hosted a solo exhibition of his works. His paintings sit in the private, corporate and museum collections of countries where exhibitions have been held, and beyond.