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Jin Xuechen (1904-1997) was born in Jiading, near
Shanghai. From an early age on, he showed a talent for painting. In
1922, he joined the painting department of the Commercial Press in
Shanghai. In 1925, he joined the Zhiying Studio, where his cooperation
with Li Mubai
started. The two soon became partners, a partnership that lasted for
several years. The two created many commercial calendar posters together, although they
would sign separately: Jin would paint the clothes and accompanying
scenery, while Li would sketch the human figures. Together with Jin Meisheng,
they were known as the "Three Pillars of Calendar Posters". Jin
combined watercolors and traditional Chinese painting, and wielded the
paint brush as easily as the air brush.
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After 1949, Jin joined the Shanghai Branch of the
Chinese Artists Association. In 1954, he and Li were contracted on a
special basis by the Shanghai Poster Publishing House, which later
merged with the Shanghai People's Fine Arts Publishing House (上海人民美术出版社，Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe),
one of the main producers of propaganda posters. In 1956, the
Publishing House requested him and Li to establish the Mubai Painting
Studio to train young painters.
The poster above was designed in collaboration with Li Mubai and Zhang Leping.
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]
Ellen Johnston Laing, Selling Happiness -- Calendar Posters and Visual Culture in Early-Twentieth-Century Shanghai (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2004)
Ng Chun Bong, Cheuk Pak Tong, Wong Ying, Yvonne Lo, Chinese Woman and Modernity—Calendar Posters of the 1910s-1930s (Hong Kong: Joint Publishing Co. 1996)
Zhang Yanfeng, "Lao yuefenpai guanggaohua" [Old Calendar Advertisements Posters], Hansheng zazhi [Echo Magazine], Nos 61 and 62; Taipei, January-February 1994 [in Chinese]
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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