His father Hsiao Yu-mei [蕭友梅] founded the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in 1927. His parents died when he was young, and he moved to Taiwan where, in 1951, he entered the Department of Art Education at the Provincial Taipei Normal School. There he met his mentor Li Chung-sheng [李仲生] (1912–1984). In 1956 Hsiao became a founding member of the Ton Fan Art Group [東方畫會] (also known as the Dongfang huahui or Eastern Painting Group). Hsiao Chin had moved to Spain in 1955, by which time his painting was rich in calligraphic marks made in oil. He moved to Italy in 1958 and lived there for forty years, establishing the Punto movement in 1961 with painters Antonio Calderara (1903–1978), Azuma Kenjiro (1926--), and Li Yuan-chia [李元佳] (1929–1994).