Huang Zhou was born in Li County, Hebei Province, and grew up to be a self-taught artist and a traditional-style painter. He studied with landscape painter Zhao Wangyun in 1940 and was accompanied by him on his trip to the Dunhuang Buddhist caves. Joining the army in 1948, he visited Xinjiang, Qinghai and Xizang, and was very much impressed and influenced by the life styles of ethnic groups. His favourite subjects were figures, landscapes and animals, especially donkeys. They were closely tied up with the everyday life of the common people and soldiers of northwestern China. Communist leaders even seemed to identify the donkeys with the days of their desperate struggle in Yenan during the 1930s and 1940s