Masterpieces of contemporary Chinese painters will be on display at a show, which is scheduled to open May 10 in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province.

The 325 paintings to be exhibited in the "Chinese Style, Contemporary Painting" exhibition were selected by a panel of leading Chinese painters from more than 900 works, the show's organizer said Thursday at a press conference in Beijing.

Yang Xiaoyang, president of the China National Academy of Painting, said the exhibition, sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, represented the highest level of contemporary Chinese painting.

Yang said 700 of the appraised paintings were submitted by local government cultural departments across the country, and the other 200 were works by living master painters, who lent them for the show by request.

Wu Guanzhong, an internationally acclaimed painter who integrates traditional Chinese painting with Western painting, was among the masters.

"The show is really Chinese and contemporary, for most of the collected works reflect the lives of today's Chinese people as well as gains and losses of the last 30 years of reform and opening up," Yang said.

The show, to be held at the Guangzhou Museum of Art for 15 days, is part of the Ninth China Art Festival, an official national cultural event that includes a variety of events.

Of the 325 collected pieces, 151 are traditional Chinese paintings, 98 are oil, and 76 are prints.

"We hope the works serve as an window on today's China," said Yang.