Pan Yulin (her own Romanisation of her name) was born in 1899 in Yangzhou in Jiangsu Province. After being the first woman to study under Liu Haishu (b. 1896) at the Academy of Fine Arts, Shanghai, she moved to Europe where she spent eight years between Paris, Lyon and Rome under Lucien Simon and Conomardi. From 1929 to 1935 she taught at the National Central University, Nanjing, under Xu Beihong (1895-1953). In 1935 she returned to Paris where she remained until her death in 1977

In 1977 the Musee Cernuschi in Paris held a special exhibition of her work. Pan Yulin's paintings have been widely exhibited throughout Europe, the United States and East Asia