Gu Yuan (1919-1996), a native of Zhongshan,
Guangdong Province, is mainly known as a woodcut artist. ln 1938, Gu
joined the Communist forces in Shaanxi. He studied at the Lu Xun
Academy (鲁艺，Luyi) in Yan'an,
from which he graduated in 1940. He was present at the "Yan'an Forum on
Literature and Arts" (1942), where Mao Zedong delivered the opening and
closing address and where the principles were set out which were to
guide the arts until the early 1980s. In 1945, Gu went to Northeast
China, where he performed with local cultural groups and worked as a
journalist and artist. He was also active in the land reform movement.
His work has come to embody the popular style of the liberated areas
and has played an important role in spreading the policies of the
Communist Party in the countryside before 1949.
In 1959, Gu Yuan joined the printmaking department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts.
Sources:
Chen Lusheng, Xin Zhongguo meishu tushi—1949-1966 [The Art History of the People's Republic of China—1949-1966] (Beijing: Zhongguo qingnian chubanshe, 2000) [in Chinese]
Scott Minick and Jiao Ping, Chinese Graphic Design in the Twentieth Century (London: Thames and
Hudson Ltd., 1990)
Michael Sullivan, Modern Chinese Artists -- A Biographical Dictionary (Berkeley, etc:
University of California Press, 2006)
Iris Wachs and Chang Tsong-zung, Half a Century of Chinese Woodblock Prints, 1999
Zhongguo meishuguan (ed.), 中国美术年鉴 1949-1989 (Guilin: Guangxi meishu chubanshe, 1993)
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s.r.landsberger@let.leidenuniv.nl
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