Huang designed a set of two Year of the Rabbit stamps for this year, while one of them — featuring a laughing, blue rabbit done in a comic style — drew divided responses, as some said it didn't look eye-pleasing at all.

Huang was open-minded to the critical feedback, saying he was to make people happy only. He once said: "The mission of an artist is to continuously discover things that people don't notice, and show them to the audience, who will be surprised and say, 'how could I not notice that?' That is pretty much what art is for."

Huang enjoyed the feeling of indulging himself in the world of art and writing as much as creating an enriched lifestyle. He is a known collector of vintage and luxury cars. He built a "ten thousand lotuses garden" at his spacious villa in suburban Beijing. He loved lotus flowers so much that he made dozens of paintings of the plant, many of several meters in length and height. He kept an army of dogs and several cats at home.

The 75-year-long marriage between Huang and his beloved wife Zhang Meixi, who died in 2020 at the age of 98, has been talked about by people with great relish. Zhang came from a well-connected family, and tied the knot with Huang against her family's wishes. The couple collaborated in work: Huang made illustrations for the work of Zhang, a children's literature writer.

His last works included a solo show of poems and illustrations at the National Museum of Modern Chinese Literature in Beijing, in April last year, and an ink painting done earlier this year, titled Starting from Minnan, which shows a big used backpack, surrounded by his recollections of early years spent in southern Fujian province after leaving his hometown in Hunan. The painting was made especially for his woodcuts exhibition, which opened at a museum in Xiamen, Fujian, on June 10.

Huang once said: "Be serious of the thing you want to do, and let your interest guide you and read all the interesting books in the world.

"If you miss me, well, take a look at the sky, and the clouds."

Contact the writer at linqi@chinadaily.com.cn