少年時入上海美術學校， 1919 年留學日本。 1920 年應政府「勤工儉學」政策，轉赴法國留學，成為中國最早期的留學生之一。畢業後，留居於法國，在大茅屋工作室從事人體素描。 1925 年起，常玉的作品便不時在巴黎的沙龍美展及各大畫廊展出。 30 年代常玉曾經因法文版《陶潛詩選》的銅版插畫，列名於法國當代藝術家之林，又因其繪畫脫俗出眾且饒富東方韻致，吸引了巴黎大收藏家侯謝的青睞，及同代藝術家的讚揚。 1966 年他逝世於巴黎之後，台北的國立歷史博物館曾分別於 1978 、 1984 、 1990 、 1995 、 2001 與 2017 年，舉辦六次他的回顧展； 2004 年法國居美亞洲藝術博物館舉辦「常玉 — 身體語言」，足見他作為海外華人藝術家在中國畫壇的重要性。
常玉作品揉合中國文人畫與西方現代藝術的風格，發展出獨特的表現方式。早期初抵巴黎時，常玉接觸到異國的浪漫情調，色彩以粉紅、白色與黑色為主，畫面典雅恬淡，形式簡約，並且運用書法性線條，傳達出愉悅情感。漸漸地因戰事瀕臨，家道中落，常玉的心境顯然不再輕鬆；雖然灑脫個性依舊，作品卻添染淡淡憂鬱。進入五、六○年代的常玉更鍾情漆器般的漆黑，在深色背景中勾勒出簡單的線條，構圖大膽，主題仍偏愛裸女、花卉、風景、小動物等。晚年潦倒落魄，趨於濃烈的懷鄉愁緒傾瀉畫面之上；威武的野獸在遼闊天地間顯得渺小而孤寂，栽種在瓶、盆中的花木纖弱而冷清，將常玉的心境表露無遺。
Born in Szechuan, China
Sanyu first attended the Shanghai Art Academy, and went to Japan in 1901. The following year, he went to France among China’s very first batch of oversea students under the sponsorship of the Chinese government. After he finished school, Sanyu remained in Paris, where he engaged in figure drawing at the Grande Chaumière. Beginning in 1925, Sanyu showed his work regularly at the Paris Salons and local galleries. In his early 30s, Sanyu garnered recognition for his copperplate prints in Les Poèmes de T'ao Ts'ien (or The Poems of T'ao Ts'ien), and gradually established his status among France’s major contemporary artists. His restrained approach to painting imbued with a rich Oriental flavor caught the attention of renowned Paris art collector Henri-Pierre Roché, and received praise from his contemporaries. Since he passed away in Paris in 1966, the National Museum of History in Taipei has held six retrospectives of Sanyu (respectively in 1978, 1984, 1990, 1995, 2001, and 2017). In 2004, the Guimet Museum of Asian Art in France held the exhibition Sanyu: L'écriture du corps: Language of the Body.
Marrying the qualities of Chinese literati painting and Western modern art, Sanyu developed a unique style of expression. In the days when he first arrived in Paris, Sanyu was intoxicated by the romantic milieu of the exotic city, which inspired his basic palette of pink, white, and black, lending his work a clean elegance rendered by joyous calligraphic lines. However, with the onset of World War II and the decline of his family’s financial fortunes, the levity evident in his earlier body of work disappeared. And although his characteristic aloofness remained, his work eventually took on a touch of gloom. Later, Sanyu found additional inspiration in lacquerware, injecting healthy doses of folk art into his work, where he teased out simple lines against dark backgrounds in bold compositions, featuring such themes as nudity, scenery, flowers, and animals. In his later years, impoverished and forlorn, the artist saw his nostalgia cascading into his paintings, where small, isolated creatures appear lost and lonely, and even the flowers in vases and pots seem wistfully frail.
