Chinese Posters [antikvár]

For over half a century, staggering quantities of propaganda posters were produced in China. Since tine proclannation of the Peopie's Repubiic of China in 1949, tens of thousands of different posters have been produced, printed in billions of copies. They cover a vast panopiy of subjects and styles, and reflect every change in the country's official ideology. The widest possible range of emotions is conveyed, from sweet sentimentality to brutal aggression. All together, the posters form a visual chronicle of arguably the most turbulent half century in the long history of China. The country shown on the posters is of course an imagined China, the China of the Communist Party's propaganda. But even in this distorting mirror, many aspects of reality can be perceived. through the Institute's online catalog and a special website, chineseposters.net. The combined IISH/Landsberger collection may be not just the largest, but also the most comprehensive collection of Chinese propaganda posters in the West. The whole era of the People's Republic is covered, even stretching back to the years before 1949, and continuing into the present. Different genres of posters are included: from propaganda posters in the strict sense of the word, to New Year pictures and reproduced paintings; genres with political messages and significance as well. While some themes and subjects may be represented better than others, the collection aims to cover all aspects. The posters in this book were selected from the collections of the Internationai Institute of Social History [IISH) and Stefan R. Landsberger. The IISH, based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, is one of the world's largest documentary and research institutions in the field of social history, holding important archival, library visual, and digital CQliectians [among which over 100,000 posters). The IISH was founded in 1935 in order to rescue collections endangered by the rise of totalitarian ideologies in large parts of Europe. Stefan R. Landsberger (Leiden University University of Amsterdam] started to collect Chinese propaganda posters in the 1970s. He considered them as rich primary sources for research on contemporary Chinese developments, and used them as the basis for his Ph.D. research, which focused on materials published in the 1980s. In 1995 he entrusted his collection to the IISH as a standing loan. Since then, the IISH and Landsberger have Joined forces and together built up a large and representative collection of Chinese propaganda posters, consisting of some 4,500 pieces at present. The collection is accessible to the general public and specialized researchers With the selection of posters shown in this book, striking images in themselves, we hope to show the reader the quality diversity, and intensity of Chinese visual propaganda. At the same time the reader will gain an insight into the extraordinary developments that have taken place in the country over the past decades. Knowing where the country has come from may help us to understand better what is happening in China today.