For the past year, China's most expensive living artist hasn't been allowed to paint, doctor's orders. Zhang Xiaogang, age 54, a Beijing-based painter whose hypnotic portraits have topped $10 million at auction, recently suffered a pair of heart attacks, and his doctors told him—for the first time in his three-decade career—to rest. Few artists embody China's art boom better than Mr. Zhang, who grew up amid the Cultural Revolution and gained fame for his large, haunting depictions of families dressed in Mao jackets and comrade's caps. Yet his desire to keep breakneck pace with China's developing art scene has taken a toll.
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Arts