Wang Mian (Zhuji, Zhejiang, 1287–1359) was a Yuan dynasty painter and poet best known for his plum blossom paintings. Born into a peasant family, he hoped to rise socially. He prepared for the imperial examinations without earning the jinshi degree, then turned to the "ancient military arts" with similarly poor results. He declined several offers of government office.
He settled as a freelance artist in Nanjing and Suzhou, painting plum and bamboo accompanied by his own poems. For Wang, the plum blossom stood for his lonely position in a world ruled by foreigners. He was hosted by the Yuan court's chief secretary in Beijing and, back in Zhejiang, built a retreat among the Kuaiji Mountains surrounded by about a thousand plum trees.
In 1359, during Zhu Yuanzhang's campaign against the Mongols, he served as an unsuccessful military adviser and died that same year. He was among the earliest artists to write poetry on their works, and he is noted for the reverse-saturation technique. Wu Jingzi's eighteenth-century novel The Scholars turned him into a semilegendary figure, while Maggie Bickford judges his painting "plain" and "ambitious".