BEIJING — Wu Guanzhong, known as one of the fathers of modern Chinese art for combining western and Chinese elements in black and white oil paintings, has died. He was 90.

He died in Beijing on Friday.

"He was an inspiration for many Chinese artists, even to this day and one of the most important forces in modern Chinese art," Tan Ping, vice president of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, said today. "This is a very sad loss for the art world."

Born in China's eastern province of Jiangsu in 1919, Wu left to study western painting at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-arts in Paris in 1947. He returned to China in 1950 to teach at Tsinghua University and the Central Academy of Fine Arts. He later became known for integrating traditional Chinese ink brush techniques with a contemporary western flair in both ink and oil paintings of landscapes, architecture, animals and people.

Wu's works have become very valuable in recent years. Earlier this month, his oil painting from 1974 depicting the Yangtze River sold for $8.4 million at a Beijing auction.