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Cai Tianxiong (蔡田雄) was a Chinese painter active in the mid-20th century, belonging to the modernist movement that sought to renew traditional landscape painting (shanshui) by incorporating freer forms, sometimes influenced by Western painting. Little documented internationally, Cai Tianxiong is representative of a generation of artists who, in the 1930s-50s, contributed to the transition between classical painting and the modernized trends of the Republican period and the early years of the People's Republic. Trained in ink and wash painting, he developed a style recognizable by its stylized compositions, vigorous brush contours and use of delicate colors laid down in successive washes. His landscapes often feature rural architecture, expressively silhouetted trees and synthetic mountains, in an aesthetic between tradition and modernity. Few records remain of his institutional career or the exhibitions in which he took part, but his works circulate today in private collections, mainly in Asia and with collectors specializing in early 20th-century modern Chinese art.