Zhang Daxin (1917-2009) was born in Chuansha, Shanghai. He received training from a.o. Jin Meisheng in 1936, graduated from the Shanghai Fine Arts Professional School, and started working for the Shanghai People's Fine Arts Publishing House in 1959. He was a well-known New Year picture painter in the 1950s and 1960s, and his large number of New Year paintings became the exclusive cultural symbols of the time.

In his popular New Year paintings, most of the baby images that appear frequently are his young daughter, Zhang Chi (张弛). She recalled that when she was a child, her father kept taking pictures while she was not paying attention. Zhang turned to landscape painting completely in his later years and created many excellent works.