Chinese Propaganda Posters: From Revolution to Modernization

Brightly coloured prints, portraying model behaviour or a better future, have been a ubiquitous element of Chinese political culture from Imperial times until present. As economic reform swept the People's Republic in the 1980s, visual propaganda ceased to depict the tanned and muscular labourers in a proletarian utopia, so typical of preceding decades. Instead, Western icons of progress and development were employed: high-speed bullet trains, spacecraft, high-rise buildings, gridlocked free-ways and projections of general affluence. Socialist Realism was phased out by design and mixed- media techniques that were influenced by Western advertising. This lavishly illustrated study traces the development of the style and content of the Chinese propaganda poster in the decade of reform, from its traditional origins to its use as a tool for political and economic purposes.