Zhang Chongren

Zhang Chongren (27 September 1907 – 8 October 1998), also known as Chang Chong-jen, was a Chinese artist and sculptor best remembered in Europe as the friend of Hergé, the Belgian comics writer and artist and creator of The Adventures of Tintin. The two met when Zhang was an art student in Brussels.

Early life

Zhang was born the son of a gardener in 1907 in Xujiahui (Ziccawei), then a suburb of Shanghai, China. The young Zhang lost both his parents at an early age and grew up in the French Jesuit orphanage of Tou-Se-we (now Tushanwan) where he entered at the age of seven, and where he learned French. He then entered the Art School of the orphanage, where he learned to draw, and was systematically educated in Western art. After finishing school in 1928, Zhang worked with design for the film industry and at a local newspaper. In 1931, he left China for the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, Belgium.

Influence on Hergé

Hergé's early albums of The Adventures of Tintin were highly dependent on stereotypes for comedic effect. These included evil Russian Bolsheviks, lazy and dumb black Africans, and an America of gangsters, cowboys, and Indians.