Artists & Designers

According to many Chinese artists and designers who at one time or another have been actively involved in the creation of propaganda art in whatever form, it is not correct to indiscriminately use the term propaganda art to cover all official art. They hold that works of art should be divided into genres, such as New Year prints (nianhua), oil paintings (youhua), gouache (shuifenhua), woodcuts (mubanhua), traditional paintings (Zhongguo hua), and others, even though some agree that these genres may have contained explicit political or propagandistic contents. According to others, a work of art can only be called propaganda art when it contains one or more politically inspired slogans. The artists' arguments seem to be based on the functional distinctions of the various units in which they worked (the nianhua section, woodblock section, etc.). Veteran artist Ha Qiongwen, however, admitted to me that the artists and designers themselves mixed up the various styles in the days when 'Leftist' policies held sway and all art had to have propaganda value.

Many propaganda posters have been produced as collective works, although professional artists often wielded the brush. The artists below have been identified as the (co-) creators of posters in the Stefan R. Landsberger Collection.

...Artists & Designers (N - Z)...

s.r.landsberger@let.leidenuniv.nl

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