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When the Huqingyutang Museum was to be established， Yu Dan， a member of the preparatory committee， went to Shanghai to visit Hu Yaguang， a great grandson of the famed pharmacy tycoon Hu Xueyan (1823-1885). The purpose was to see if the 82-year-old Hu Yaguang had any suggestions and advice to make for the museum and if the well known portrait of his grandfather he had painted was still in his possession.

Xu Dan was warmly welcomed. But when he mentioned the portrait， the artist shook his head emotionally and became silent. It turned out that all his paintings and drawings were confiscated during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). The lost treasure included not only that portrait of his great grandfather but also a portrait of Liu Yazi (1887-1958)， a revolutionary and poet. Then Hu Yaguang said that the portrait was printed in the 1930s in Shen Bao， a leading newspaper in Shanghai of that time. Xu Dan was excited. He visited the Shanghai Archives and located the issue that printed the portrait. Today， the copy of the portrait hangs in the museum in Hangzhou.

Hu Yaguang， a grandson of Hu Pinsan who was the third son of Hu Xueyan， was born in 1901. His father was a provincial graduate， poet and painter. His maternal great grandfather Dai Xi was a high-ranking official of the Qing Dynasty and an established painter of landscape， birds and flowers. The maternal great grandfather and the grandfather taught him how to paint and noted that the kid would grow up to be a painter. In his childhood years， Hu Yaguang also studied the western art under the guidance of Zhang Yuguang. His oil paintings revealed the influences of French artist Henri Matisse.

He was best at creating portraitures. The Hu family residence at Baoyuan Street was destroyed in a fire when he was 18 years old. Things lost in the fire include the portraits of ancestors. From his memory， he recreated a portrait of his grandfather. The image looked so real and animated that the relatives all thought the portrait was painted years before.

Zhang Taiyan (1869-1936)， a prominent scholar of classical learning， visited Hangzhou in 1919 and the 19-year-old Hu Yaguang attended the welcome banquet as a guest. Seeing the master glowing in vigor and chatting humorously， the young artist was greatly impressed and inspired. Confident of his art and encouraged by his recent achievement in drawing portraits of Li Shutong and Mei Lanfang， Hu asked permission to draw a portrait of Zhang on the spot. With all the great guys looking on， the young artist drew fast. The drawing was accurate and vivid. Zhang Taiyan was so pleased that he inscribed on the portrait.

Hu Yaguang staged his solo show of paintings at the West Lake Exposition in 1929 and his collections of paintings were printed. He taught art in two academies of fine arts in Hangzhou. When the Japanese invaders captured Hangzhou， Hu Yaguang and his family fled to the countryside. He came back to find that the ancient books and paintings he had collected over years was destroyed by Japanese soldiers. Shortly after this disaster， he moved to Shanghai. His cartoons appeared in Shanghai newspapers. He met with patriotic writers and artists in the isolated island that was Shanghai. After the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) he painted again and he revisited Hangzhou on several occasions. In 1984， he was invited to visit the Huqingyutang Pharmacy. He marveled at the well-preserved grandeur of the pharmacy and was impressed by the good business there.

Hu Yaguang passed away on November 19， 1986. The Huqingyutang sent representatives to attend his funeral in Shanghai. Hu Yaguang was buried in Hangzhou. In October 2007， his eldest daughter came to visit the tomb of her father and the tomb of Hu Xueyan.□