Hung Rui-lin was born in Dadao-chen, Taipei in 1912. Hung’s father Hung Her-ding was skilled at traditional Chinese calligraphy and paintings therefore Hung developed a high interest towards art under this influence. In 1927, Hung entered the Taiwan Painting Institution to study watercolor paintings and sketches under the instruction of Ishikawa Kinichiro. In 1930, Hung went to Japan to study painting along with Chang Wan-chuan and Chen De-wang. In 1931, Hung passed the exam and entered the Department of Western Painting, Teikoku Art School (now Musashino Art University) to receive academic art education. He was under the instructions of Ebihara Kinosuke and Shimizu Takaji. In 1935, his work was selected by the 9th “Taiwan Fine Arts Exhibition.” In 1936, Hung graduated from art school and joined Tai-yang Art Society. In 1938, Hung started to work at Rui-fang Colliery Company and coal miners had thus become his art themes. Hung established MOUVE Artists' Society the same year with Chang Wan-chuan, Chen De-wang, Chen Chun-der and others. In 1954, Hung joined Chen De-wang, Chang Wan-chuan, Chang Yi-shiung, Chin Jun-tso, and Liao Te-cheng to set up Era Art Association. In 1964, Hung was invited by Li Mei-shu to teach arts in National Academy of Arts. In 1980, Hung moved to the United States. All his life, Hung never stopped his artistic creativity. In the 40s and 50s, he often painted coal miners using different skills and styles such as pencil sketches, watercolors, light watercolors, and water inks on Xuan paper (rice paper). Throughout his life, his concerns centered on the coal miners whom he considered to be a proper theme to represent the laborious life of the masses which distinguished Hung from his peer painters.

Hung’s depictions of coal miners do not emphasize on the wretched and misery side of those laborers, instead, he interprets his themes with his illustrations of the harmonious progress of laborers wrestling with life. Therefore, in his artwork on coal miners, one will not see the sad, grief side of life. In this work, Hung sketches coalminers with simple, fluent, and rough lines. Faces carved with hardships, tanned and tightened muscles, all come into life under the strokes of the painter.

During the 1930s while Hung was in Japan, the peak of Japanese proletarian arts movement happened. Though Hung’s artwork does not directly display a response to proletarian arts, the spirit of the movement had permeated into his artistic ideas. In 1934, while still studying, Hung Rui-lin attended Japan Avant-garde Artists Club and was involved with European art concepts such as Cubism, Fauvism, Expressionism, Abstract Expressionism, and so on. Under the instruction of Shimizu Takaji, Hung had come to realize the conscientiousness and seriousness of European modern art. In 1936, Hung Rui-lin graduated from Teikoku Art School and returned to Taiwan. With Ni Jiang-huai’s arrangement, Hung found a job at the coalmine and it turned out to be the most important period of Hung’s lifetime. Hung adapted coalminers as his theme and created his most important works. Since Hung personally participated in the physical labor rather than just as an observer, he made the laborious life sublimate into the realm of art. Hung’s “coalminer” paintings had thus become a cornerstone for Hung to establish his important role in the history of Taiwanese art.