Career
As an artist, he was active in Shanghai. However he also did numerous landscapes. In poetry he preferred the rhyming ci form and added such poems to his paintings.
His social circle included prominent literati as well as artists.
His work often used a delicate baimiao (outline) style, which can be clearly see in his illustrations for Honglou meng, (Dream of the Red Chamber). The illustrations are chiefly portraits of the main characters in the novel.
Numerous poets, including the renowned woman poet Zhou Qi, wrote poems to accompany the illustrations. The scholar Wang Qisun 王岂孙 commissioned Gai Qi to paint an album of famous Chinese women, both historical and legendary.
Wang"s second wife, Cao Zhenxiu 曹贞秀 wrote poems about the women and did the calligraphy in the album.
Gai took as a student the talented woman painter and poet Qian Shoupu 錢守璞(ca 1801-1869). He was associated with the painter Fei Danxu 费丹旭 in what has been called the "Gai Fei" school. Gai"s grandson continued the tradition of the Gai Fei school, along with descendants of Fei Danxiu.