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Zhao Shou (1912-2003) was a Chinese visual artist, widely considered to have been the first surrealist painter in China. He attended the Guangzhou Municipal Art School and Shanghai Arts Academy, then studied at Nihon University in Japan in 1933, where he first encountered surrealism. In 1935, Zhao was one of the founders of the Chinese Independent Art Association, which was inspired by both surrealism and fauvism.

Zhao embraced surrealism, translated selections from Breton's Surrealist Manifestos, but also adapted it, insisting that it could not be solely defined by Western artists. In the words of critic Mu Tianfan, he "believed that to paint surrealistically meant using Western techniques to express the Eastern spirit.”