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Chairman Mao inspecting a Guangdong Village

Poster
ca.1970 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Through the upheaval of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) Mao Zedong aimed to reinvigorate Communism in China and eliminate traditional urban class differences. The smiling, productive Guangdong villagers are depicted in a flattering manner which elevates peasant workers to integral participants in Mao's new society. A 'saturation campaign' of visual propaganda was a primary vehicle for disseminating the new ideologies. Themes and form were rigidly prescribed and the idealised figures were often copied from source books.


Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleChairman Mao inspecting a Guangdong Village (assigned by artist)
Materials and techniques
Colour offset lithograph
Brief description
Poster image of Chairman Mao with Guangdong villagers. Beijing, China n.d.
Physical description
Chairman Mao walking along dirt road with fields and productive field workers on either side. Walking with but slightly behind the Chinese leader is a large gathering of the barefoot Guangdong villagers, some carrying farming tools, all smiling and robust. Mao wears a white button-front long sleeve shirt, grey trouser help up by a brown belt. He carries a woven hat in his right hand. A villager also carries a straw hat, inscribed '1958' in red. Text below.
Dimensions
  • Height: 53.4cm
  • Width: 77.4cm
Marks and inscriptions
  • 86-582 (turquoise on white, lower right)
  • People's Publishing House
  • Printed in Beijing
  • [Chinese Text] (mauve on white)
Credit line
Gift of the American Friends of the V&A; Gift to the American Friends by Leslie, Judith and Gabri Schreyer and Alice Schreyer Batko
Subjects depicted
Place depicted
Summary
Through the upheaval of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) Mao Zedong aimed to reinvigorate Communism in China and eliminate traditional urban class differences. The smiling, productive Guangdong villagers are depicted in a flattering manner which elevates peasant workers to integral participants in Mao's new society. A 'saturation campaign' of visual propaganda was a primary vehicle for disseminating the new ideologies. Themes and form were rigidly prescribed and the idealised figures were often copied from source books.
Associated object
E.692-2004 (Duplicate)
Bibliographic references
  • 'Chinese Propaganda Posters: from Revolution to Modernization' by Stefan Landsberger. Amsterdam: The Pepin Press. 1995.
  • Chinese Propaganda Posters. Taschen. 2003.
Other number
LS.1482 - Leslie Schreyer Loan Number
Collection
Accession number
E.693-2004

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Record createdSeptember 27, 2004
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