Early portrait of Mao

[Mao Zedong]. Li Qun, graphic artist (1912-2012). [Chairman Mao].

€ 25,000.00

Exceedingly rare, early portrait of Mao by the celebrated Chinese artist Li Qun, one of the pioneers and founders of the burgeoning Chinese printmaking industry in the 20th century, aimed at propagating Mao's image in the liberated areas in the 1940s. Qun Li prepared two sketches of this portrait, the second one ultimately remaining a pencil sketch.

After the Long March from the south in 1934-35, the Chinese Communist Party established Soviet or Liberated areas in the north-west, with headquarters at Yan'an. The CCP stressed the importance of art, culture and education. They proved vital weapons in winning the people over to the socialist cause, and to this end the Lu Xun Academy was founded in 1938. Profiting from the Bolshevik example, 'agit-prop' (agitation-propaganda) teams were trained in theatre and the visual arts. Cartoons, posters, drawings, news-sheets and prints were all seen as suitable media for persuasion. Artists were to inform and educate as well as entertain. Art's didactic and social ends had been argued throughout the 1920s and 1930s, and were reinforced by Mao Zedong at the Yan'an forums on literature and art in 1942.

Only two more copies of this poster are known, both in Chinese private collections.