Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Ashmolean − Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Cultural Revolution: State Graphics in China in the 1960s and 1970s (II)

(from 11th Jul until 20th Nov 2011)

Explore the bold and colourful imagery found on posters and other items from this revolutionary period.

Detail of Figures and flags in front of Great Hall of the People, China, 1976 (Museum No: EA2006.263
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Chairman Mao on the Way to Anyuan

  • Description

    The original oil painting in this poster was produced by Liu Chunhua for a Red Guard exhibition in 1967 on the theme of Mao’s visit to Anyuan in 1921. Anyuan was a coalmining area famous for the workers’ strikes that took place there in the 1920s. According to the communist party history current in the 1960s, the strikes had been organized by head of state Liu Shaoqi. The 1967 exhibition and this painting in particular, in which Mao replaces Liu in one of his best-known achievements, were part of Mao’s campaign to discredit Liu Shaoqi. In 1967 Jiang Qing declared the image a suitable model for Cultural Revolution art and the total number of reproductions of it, including Mao badges and postage stamps, has been estimated by the artist at nine hundred million. It first circulated in the People’s Pictorial and as a colour supplement to The People’s Daily, The People’s Liberation Army Daily and Red Flag magazine and was published without an artist’s name. It was then credited as ‘created by the Student Group of the Beijing Academies, executed by Liu Chunhua and others’. Liu’s name was in fact Chenghua but the misprint was only discovered after several hundred thousand copies had been printed, and he has since gone by the name Liu Chunhua.

  • Details

    Associated place
    Asia China (place of creation)
    AsiaChinaHebei province Beijing (place of publication)
    Date
    1968
    Artist/maker
    Liu Chunhua (born 1944) (artist)
    Associated people
    Foreign Language Press (established 1952) (publisher)
    Mao Zedong (Chairman Mao) (1893 - 1976) (subject)
    Material and technique
    lithograph
    Dimensions
    53 x 37.7 cm (height x width)
    Material index
    Technique index
    Object type index
    No. of items
    1
    Credit line
    Purchased, 2006.
    Accession no.
    EA2006.188

Location

    • currently in research collection

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Notice

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