Gu Yuan

Beginning in the 1920s, Chinese artists of the intellectual left revived and reformatted the traditional art of woodblock printing, which had been used for a millennium in popular secular and religious works and for book illustrations. By combining native practice with influences from the West, especially those of German Expressionists like Kathe Kollwitz, they produced powerful social and political commentaries on the contemporary Chinese scene.

These prints are part of a group of 16 presented to Colonel Marcellus Duffy in 1945 (?) during his stay in Yan'an, the Communist stronghold and base of operations in the northwest. It was from this center that Mao Zedong launched his campaign for the Communist take-over of China between 1945 and 1949. By this time, the woodcut medium had become a significant political tool for the Communist Party. These are the first examples of modem Chinese prints from this period to enter the Museum's collection. Their thematic relation to Western polemical printmaking makes them a nice complement to the Museum's extensive holding of politically inspired works in the Department of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs.