“Can you understand the Shanghai dialect?” Zhou Yinghua asks. After spending more than half a century abroad, the eighty-three-year-old now speaks Chinese with an accent, but his deep homesickness remains audible. The son of the legendary Peking Opera master Zhou Xinfang, Zhou Yinghua studied at Saint Martin’s, painted, worked in architectural design, made films, and eventually became a household name as the “Chinese culinary genius” behind his upscale Chinese restaurant chain, Mr. Chow.

Zhou Yinghua with Jean-Michel Basquiat, Portrait of Mr. Chow. In his studio, Zhou Yinghua created works by Andy Warhol, David Hockney, and Jean-Michel Basquiat—artists whose names now resound across the art world—and each painted a portrait of him.

“You could say I know every celebrity,” Zhou told us jokingly. He is also a well-known collector within the art world, with a large collection of art and antiques. After putting down his brush for fifty years, he has even begun working again as a professional artist. On the day we spoke with him, the opening of his latest solo exhibition, One Breath, had recently concluded at Sotheby’s Dubai space, following his 2015 solo exhibition at UCCA in Beijing.

“Art was my dream when I was young. It has always been calling me,” he said. In a photograph of Zhou Xinfang with his children, the little boy held in his arms is Zhou Yinghua. “My Chinese name is Zhou Yinghua, and it can be understood in two ways. First, I grew up in two countries, China and Britain. Second, ‘Yinghua’ can be read as ‘the hero of China.’ I like both interpretations.” As the youngest son of Zhou Xinfang, the celebrated founder of the Qipai school of Peking Opera, Zhou Yinghua had a strong urge to perform from an early age. Even his way of walking imitated Peking Opera actors. “At the time, I always wanted to follow in my father’s footsteps and become a Peking Opera actor.”

“But all of that was disrupted when I was thirteen. I went from Shanghai to London.” At thirteen, Zhou Yinghua was sent to boarding school in Britain by his mother, Qiu Lilin, a well-known wealthy heiress in Shanghai. The pampered young master who had once been surrounded by servants in a French-style mansion became a “nobody” in a foreign country where he did not know a single letter of the English alphabet. Because he had suffered from asthma since childhood, he had never attended a conventional school. The vast cultural divide was a profound shock to Zhou, who arrived alone in a foreign land. More painful still was the racial discrimination he encountered in the Western world of the 1950s, which was nearly impossible to bear.

Zhou Yinghua, Untitled, 1962. Zhou Yinghua, Self-Portrait, 1959. “In the educational systems of Britain and America at the time, everyone believed that Chinese people were at the bottom of all races, and that Chinese culture was at the bottom as well. I was extremely angry. I had been born into a family steeped in culture, so this discrimination struck me as deeply ironic and theatrical. That was when I decided to express myself through art.”

After graduating from a British boarding school, he was admitted to Saint Martin’s School of Art to study photography, and then spent two years studying architectural design at Hammersmith College of Art and Building. From 1957 to 1967, for a full decade, he continued to make art and design work, yet remained unknown. In the Western social climate of the time, an Asian man with a yellow face could not succeed in the art world. Zhou Yinghua, stylishly dressed, at the first Mr. Chow restaurant, 1968. It was not until he was twenty-eight that he finally seized an opportunity and opened the first Mr. Chow Chinese restaurant in the Knightsbridge district near Harrods in London.

This became the “golden key” that changed his life.

“In my mind, Chinese Peking Opera and culinary culture could conquer the world. But in Western eyes, Chinese people could only open cheap restaurants and laundries. Under those circumstances, I wanted to make the restaurant a space for promoting Chinese culture, so that Westerners would understand that Chinese people and Chinese culture deserve respect.” The first Mr. Chow, near Harrods in London. Mr. Chow in Las Vegas, where the enormous movable sculpture above the restaurant, Moon, was designed by Zhou Yinghua himself. Mr. Chow in Miami. It was also in this restaurant that Zhou began his landmark journey as a collector.

Mr. Chow was a Chinese restaurant designed like a purely Western fine-dining establishment. Its servers were all foreign, blond, and blue-eyed; there was no noisy atmosphere and no greasy tabletops. In restaurants combining European elements with modern avant-garde design, the offerings included a singular Peking duck and tableside noodle performances.

“I turned the restaurant into a theater, and all the social figures came because they had heard about it. That is how my restaurant survived in an environment where survival seemed almost impossible. Some artists even brought paintings to settle their bills,” Zhou recalled. Peter Blake, Frisco Wang and Lorenzo Wang, and the Wild Man Zhou Yinghua, 1966. Hung in a Mr. Chow restaurant, the work depicts Frisco Wang and Lorenzo Wang, and the Wild Man Zhou Yinghua. At the time, Mr. Chow was a place that social figures “had to” visit: artists, film stars, members of royal families, fashion designers, politicians, businesspeople, athletes…

Nearly every celebrity had been there. Through the restaurant, Zhou met many of the leading figures and artists of the twentieth century. He also encountered the most avant-garde Pop and graffiti artists of the day and, before they were famous, invited them to paint his portrait.

“You have to understand that in the 1960s, portraiture was very unfashionable.” The first self-portrait he received came from the Pop art pioneer Peter Blake.

“I asked him to paint me very, very yellow, to satirize the social phenomenon of discrimination against yellow people. Peter painted me as a wrestling manager, with two people beside me trying to give me money. This painting has enormous significance for me.” Artists posing together at the Mr. Chow restaurant, New York, around 1983. The figures include Michael Hazell, Arman, Julian Schnabel, David Hockney, Andy Warhol, John Chamberlain, and Sean Hausman, among others. The actor who played Jean-Michel Basquiat in the film Basquiat, at left, and the actor who played Andy Warhol, at second from left, posing at the Mr. Chow restaurant, New York, 1995. After that, Zhou began collecting portraits of himself from the artist friends he admired, asking each to interpret him freely through his or her own medium and style.

“I am glad that in the 1960s I chose my own portrait as a subject. What makes me especially proud is that ninety percent of the artists in my collection who were unknown at the time later became major stars in the field—Andy Warhol, David Hockney, Julian Schnabel, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Dan Flavin, and others.” Andy Warhol, Untitled, 1984, now in the collection of the Andy Warhol Museum. Andy Warhol, Untitled, 1984. A photographic work by Andy Warhol of Zhou Yinghua. “The process of Andy Warhol making this portrait of me was like ordering a sandwich.”

“I told him, ‘I don’t want color. I want to see the diamond-like white points on the photographic negative.’ So he made the left half of the portrait a negative, and the right half a developed black-and-white photograph.” Keith Haring, Mr. Chow in a Bowl of Emerald Noodles, 1986. Keith Haring, center, Stewart Pivar, left, and Zhou Yinghua, right, 1985, photographed by Andy Warhol. “Keith Haring painted me in a very funny ‘emerald shrimp noodle’ dish, which was also his favorite at Mr. Chow.”

“I am a green shrimp, green from head to toe, and very ugly. But you know, ugliness in art and ugliness in reality are two different things,” Zhou said with a laugh. Jean-Michel Basquiat, Portrait of Mr. Chow, 1985. Zhou Yinghua with Jean-Michel Basquiat at Mr. Chow. Zhou once displayed Basquiat’s portrait of him in the center of his Los Angeles home. After divorcing his former wife, he no longer lives in the mansion. Image source: screenshot from an earlier interview. “Jean-Michel Basquiat was a very close friend of mine, and without question a master of contemporary history. He was truly extraordinary.

“I sat there while he painted furiously on the canvas without looking at me at all. The portrait is powerful, intensely personal, and full of profound insight and love. I like the work very much.” David Hockney, Untitled, 1969. David Hockney, Untitled, 1969. Julian Schnabel, Untitled, 1985. “In this painting, I am half naked. Julian Schnabel used a kind of heroic figure as his model and painted my portrait.”

“In the 1980s, he began painting with broken porcelain plates. If you look closely, you will see pieces of broken plates in this portrait too; they are all fragments of dishes broken at the MR. CHOW restaurant.” Francesco Clemente, Portrait of Mr. Chow, 1983. Zhou Yinghua with a wax figure made for him by Urs Fischer. Zhou never hesitated to make fun of himself. He commissioned the sculptor Urs Fischer to create a wax figure ten percent larger than his actual body. “At the restaurant’s fiftieth-anniversary celebration, I burned the wax figure. The melted ‘me’ looked very interesting.”

Kenny Scharf, Mr. Chow’s Paradise, 1998. Kenny Scharf painted Zhou Yinghua into his “fantasy kingdom.”

“Obviously, I was having a great time in there,” Zhou said with a laugh. Edward Ruscha, Zhou Xinfang, 1982. Edward Ruscha, Zhou Xinfang, detail, 1982. Zhou invited Edward Ruscha to paint a “portrait” of his father, Zhou Xinfang. The quotation marks are there because the image is, in fact, simply the Peking Opera master’s Chinese name, rendered in black characters against a red ground—a startling, almost shocking effect.

Edward Ruscha, Mr. Chow Restaurant, Los Angeles, 1973. The work was once hung in Zhou Yinghua’s Los Angeles home. “The painting Edward made for me was composed of different foods—soy sauce, egg yolk, vegetables, and so on.” The celebrated photographer Antonio Lopez’s portrait of Zhou Yinghua. Dan Flavin, Untitled, 1982. Dan Flavin’s encounter with Zhou had a faintly romantic quality.

“I was sitting in a restaurant in Los Angeles. I didn’t know that Dan Flavin was at the table next to me. He drew my profile in pen. I happened to walk past his table, and he asked whether I wanted the sketch. Then we began talking.” Cy Twombly, Cy Twombly x Mr Chow, a neon sign. Behind every portrait is a different story, a different artistic temperament, and a very different method of making.

The portrait series contains roughly more than forty works and is still growing. A Mr. Chow neon sign, commissioned after the words “Mr. Chow” written by the late minimalist artist Cy Twombly, now stands outside the restaurant in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles. During the 1970s and 1980s, Zhou was passionate about collecting Art Deco art and collectible design. In his home at the time, the spiral staircase at right was designed by Zhou himself. “My collecting journey actually began when I was six or seven.”

Zhou says that when he was very young, he liked collecting Russian stamps because they were beautiful and brightly colored. In his view, collecting art is a process of learning and enriching oneself. He told us that he has recently been collecting Chinese antiquities, including porcelain and antique sculptures from the Yuan, Ming, and Qing periods, a field he previously knew nothing about. He cannot remember exactly how many objects he owns. “Perhaps several hundred. The number of objects has no particular meaning for me. I enjoy the process of collecting.”

He believes the best place to display a collection is one’s own mind.

“It exercises your memory. I often replay in my head which works I have collected.” Zhou Yinghua’s former home in Los Angeles. Art Deco remained the dominant style, and the enormous tapestry at the center of the wall came from a sixteenth-century Belgian room. A polka-dot painting by Damien Hirst hangs in the center of the room. “I have never felt that when collectors buy works, they therefore own them. Each collector is only their temporary guardian. All we can do is ‘take care’ of the collection.”

He believes that for young collectors, the two most important things are a secure financial foundation and a sufficient store of knowledge about art.

“Of course, one’s view of art is subjective. But before making a subjective judgment, it is essential to study art and look at a great deal of it. Without knowledge, you may not even be able to make a choice.” Zhou Yinghua with his work Global Warming, Zhou Yinghua’s studio, 2019. Zhou Yinghua, Untitled, 2022. Zhou had spent decades commanding the restaurant world, with celebrity friends around the globe, but he still felt something was missing.

In 2012, he finally picked up the brush he had set down half a century earlier. After achieving success and returning in the latter half of his life, his passion and drive for making work remained remarkably like those of the young artist fifty years earlier who had slept in a basement and owned nothing.

“I felt that it was time for me to return to art. But in fact, I have never left art in my life. I have always considered myself an artist—whether I was running restaurants, making films, or working as a designer.”

Global Warming, Zhou Yinghua’s studio, 2019. His work looks half sculptural, half painterly. He uses large quantities of gold and silver leaf, along with broken eggs, sponges, plastic gloves, fishing nets, vases, strong coffee, and other objects from daily life. He “throws” them into a pool of paint. The paint, in various colors, seems to act as an adhesive among these objects, bringing unrelated things together into a relief-like surface.

He says he can use fifty gallons of paint in a single session.

“My life is a collage, and my work also takes the form of collage, putting different things together. The entire process of making a work is extremely complex, almost like cooking from a recipe. My job is to find a kind of harmony in chaos, like yin and yang.” Zhou Yinghua at work in his studio. In his works, he uses staples to fasten the different materials; a single piece may require more than 4,000 staples.

He also burns, smashes, and splashes the materials, allowing them and the paint to occupy a defined yet unstable and uncontrollable range. Zhou says that his fire-burned works have a skinlike texture. Ash left after burning is often associated with funerals and death. Zhou Yinghua, Untitled, 2022. Detail of a work by Zhou Yinghua. In 2015, to commemorate the 120th anniversary of his father Zhou Xinfang’s birth, he held a major exhibition at UCCA in Beijing, Voice for My Father.

Many of the works paid tribute to earlier artists and responded to Chinese traditional culture. Beyond the White Poles was a dialogue with Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles. Turner’s Slave Ship was also one of the paintings that inspired Zhou; in response, he created Recollection at Sea—1781.

“Turner’s painting is actually very violent. There is blood on the sea. The 1781 was a ship carrying enslaved people back to Britain. One hundred and six enslaved people were barely alive, and the owners chained them together and drowned them at sea because the insurance money for enslaved people who died was greater than the money they would have received by selling them.” Zhou Yinghua, The Four Seasons (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter), 2018. The inspiration for The Four Seasons came from the Chinese Ming-dynasty Four Seasons paintings.

“All four paintings are related to nature. They look like traditional Chinese paintings. When Chinese people face nature, they are always humble.” This coincided with the Qipai philosophy and thought of his father, Zhou Xinfang, which Zhou Yinghua hopes to carry forward. Unlike many traditional easel painters, Zhou prefers to paint on a horizontal surface rather than stand the board upright.

“I spend roughly sixty or seventy percent of my time painting on a flat tabletop. If you always paint vertically, the paint and liquid drip downward. When you paint on a flat surface, the paint takes on a very special state—one that is unique.” Zhou Yinghua, One Breath 58, 2018, photographed by FREDRIK NILSEN STUDIO. Global Warming, Zhou Yinghua’s studio, 2019. After seven years of sustained work, Zhou’s style has continued to evolve through experimentation.

His solo exhibition One Breath at Sotheby’s Dubai space in July included, alongside his familiar “half sculpture, half painting” style, works that were much “lighter” than those before them. He had set aside much of the weight of history, turning from the outside world toward changes within himself.

The “lightness” appeared in two ways. First, in the materials: Zhou began painting on xuan paper and no longer relied only on thick, heavy pigment or on layers of objects piled onto the board. Second, in the method: he completed an entire work in the instant of “one breath.” Zhou Yinghua, One Breath 168, 2019, photographed by FREDRIK NILSEN STUDIO. Zhou Yinghua, One Breath 139, 2018, photographed by FREDRIK NILSEN STUDIO. “In Chinese tradition, whether in martial arts or cooking, great importance is placed on ‘one breath.’”

“At such speed, you cannot think or lie; there is not even emotion in it. What happens in an instant is internal, like magic, full of poetry.” This is how Zhou described the logic behind the new works in the solo exhibition. Artist, collector, designer, business prodigy, film star… Despite having accumulated so many remarkable identities, Zhou still hopes to remain humble and sincere.

“I am very lucky that at my age I can still pursue my artistic dream. I think all art is interconnected. Whether I am making art, films, or restaurants, working in design, or collecting art, everything contains a certain kind of ‘craft,’ and I have always been searching for a nearly perfect ‘craft.’” Editor: Huang Xirui