(From left) Lin Xudong, Chen Danqing and Han Xin ride bicycles in Shanghai's narrow lanes to retrace the starting point of their four-decade-long friendship and artistic careers. [Photo by Li Qi /China Daily] 

 
From top: Oil painting Tibet Series by Chen Danqing, oil painting Smoking Strong Man by Lin Xudong, and watercolor Place for Mushrooming (Siberia) by Han Xin. [Photos provided to China Daily]

The exhibition Story of 40 Years by a trio of artists who are best friends represents the evolution of Chinese art.

For so many years, a lingering scene has been looping in Chen Danqing's head: Two teenage boys race bicycles in Shanghai's narrow lanes, one surpassing the other, while they laugh and ring their bicycle bells. When they arrive at No 1301 West Huaihai Road, a Western building in the busiest area of the former French Concession, the two shout out at a second floor window. An older teenage boy pops his head out and says: "Come up!"

It was 1971, when the "cultural revolution" (1966-1976) was in full swing. Chen was 18. Han Xin, the other boy on the bicycle, had just turned into 16. And Lin Xudong, the one at the window, was 19.

That year, in the building that was Lin's house, the three school dropouts began their painting odyssey by covertly copying works of Western masters like Diego Velazquez (1599-1660) and Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) from remnants of pictures they had.

Forty years later, the three are still painting.

Recently, the trio dusted off many of the artworks they made over the past four decades and will air them once again at the Art Gallery of Chinese Academy of Oil Painting under the title Story of 40 Years.