Yan Youjun (1930) was a native of Changzhou City, Jiangsu Province. In 1955, he graduated from the Painting Department of the East China Branch of the Central Academy of Fine Arts (later Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts, now the China Academy of Art), and stayed as a teacher for nearly 40 years. Before retiring in 1990, he served as director and professor of the Chinese Painting Teaching and Research Section of the Department of Art Education.

Yan is known for his landscape paintings, as well as watercolors and pastel paintings.