Born in Chengdu, China, in 1976, Tu Hongtao was admitted to the affiliated high school of the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in 1991. He later graduated with a specialization in oil painting from the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou in 1999. Completing his formal education on the eve of the millennium, the artist began his career during an era of swift transformation in his country—one that signalled the end of its collective economy and the rise of the market economy and globalization.