# First Day of Summer

A girl in a white short-sleeved shirt is seen from behind, her dark hair in a long braid that falls down her back. She faces a soft, cloud-filled turquoise sky - the particular pale green-blue of early summer. Her posture is still, shoulders relaxed, the braid a single dark line against the white and sky. We see nothing of her face; the painting gives us only this: a figure at the beginning of something, looking forward into open air. Zhu's work frequently withholds direct access to her subjects' expressions, finding in the turned back or downcast gaze a form of privacy that is more revealing than confrontation.

[Browse all works by Wenyi Zhu](/collections/wenyi-zhu)

## Details

- **Price:** 4000.0 USD
- **Vendor:** Art Scout
- **Type:** Original Painting
- **Tags:** buy original art online, children, collector art, figurative painting, glazing technique, oil painting, original painting, portrait, wall art, Wenyi Zhu

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 4000.00 USD | In stock |

## Images

- First Day of Summer – oil painting by Zhu of a girl in a white shirt seen from behind, dark braid falling down her back, facing pale green-blue early summer sky, figure at the beginning of something looking into open air
- First Day of Summer by Zhu – detail of single dark braid against white shirt and pale turquoise summer sky in layered oil glazing
- First Day of Summer by Zhu – full canvas of turned-back figure in white and turquoise summer sky with emotional withholding as subject
- First Day of Summer by Zhu – close-up of dark braid as single line against white shirt in multi-layered traditional oil glazing technique
- First Day of Summer by Zhu – painting in room context
- First Day of Summer
- First Day of Summer

## Additional Information

- **Dimensions:** 24"×24"
- **Artist Material:** Oil on canvas
- **Artist Name:** Wenyi Zhu
- **About The Artist Link:** https://www.artscout.pro/collections/wenyi-zhu

### About The Artist Content

Wenyi Zhu (b. 1981, Suzhou, China) is a figurative painter based in College Station, Texas, whose work explores the human figure as both a physical and psychological presence. She came of age in Suzhou, a city famous for its classical gardens, and was introduced to image-making by her grandfather, a Chinese calligrapher. A prolonged childhood illness deepened that early practice, turning drawing into a sustained interior discipline that still shapes her work today.

Before devoting herself fully to painting, Zhu earned a PhD in environmental science from Rutgers University, a background whose analytical rigor surfaces in the careful structure and patience behind each composition. She works in oil using a traditional multi-layered technique rooted in Renaissance and French academic painting, building each canvas from a grisaille underpainting through successive transparent glazes, a process that produces the soft, luminous quality her figures are known for.

Her paintings frequently depict women and children in quiet, self-contained moments, unhurried scenes that seem to exist just outside the reach of narrative. Informed by Raphael, Botticelli, and Bouguereau in their idealized tenderness, and by Magritte in their subtle psychological distance, Zhu's work returns persistently to the same preoccupations: fragility, stillness, and the faint but unmistakable presence of an interior life.

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> Source: [Art Scout](https://www.artscout.pro/products/first-day-of-summer)
> Updated: 2026-08-28