T'ang Haywen arrived in Paris in 1948, officially to study medicine, and never left. He discovered a country where creativity was in full effervescence. Like other foreign artists, he came face to face with Western modernity and, like the first Chinese artists who came to Paris to train, including Zao Wou-Ki (1920-2013) and Chu Teh-Chun (1920-2014), he became one of the leading figures in the bubbling hotbed of artistic life that was Montparnasse at the time.

Trained in Western painting, his sketchbooks reveal that he regularly visited Paris museums, including the Musée Guimet, and was inspired by the city in urban landscapes sketched quickly with a ballpoint pen. A modern man of letters, insatiably curious about Western arts and cultures, he found his vocation as a painter in Paris. Trained in calligraphy by his grandfather and interested in Taoist philosophy, he lived free of material and social constraints. He wrote to his brother in 1958: "I found my vocation in painting... I didn't think it would please our parents... it's a very serious business, where there can be no question, honestly, of seeking success for its own sake... Success must, to be genuine, be completely sincere. Once a painter has found himself, then he can work for others, he must, but he can't do it before... I can't and won't give up this vocation."