Wenxi LIU

20 color portraits of President Mao Zedong dating from the 1960s to 1970s. Liu Wenxi is famous in China for his portraits of Mao, born in 1933 he was the greatest representative of socialist realism. Most of the portraits are accompanied by a caption and the artist's red seal, some captions are very brief: the god of the people, others explain the political or historical situation in which Mao finds himself. The title label is handwritten, and one can easily imagine that this type of collection was printed for propaganda purposes to glorify President Mao. The album contains no publisher's or printer's name.
Accordion album on rigid cardboard composed of 20 panels. Each printed portrait (appears to be an offset process) has been mounted. The upper and lower covers have been covered with turquoise blue silk fabric with leaf and flower motifs. The composition of the whole is handcrafted. The title label appears to be handwritten. This type of collection was certainly produced by the painter's workshop. Trace of dampstain at edges and on the third portrait in lower margin, not touching the drawing.
Also a politician, but above all a teacher, Liu Wenxi was very close to power and he began painting Mao very early, as soon as the communists took refuge in the northern Shaanxi region after the famous Long March. Barely a student he would say: "President Mao is truly extraordinary, I am determined to paint this great man all my life to transmit his image to future generations." During the Cultural Revolution, Liu Wenxi was part of the Qin WenMei, a group of local artists who worked on specific projects. Today, the hundred yuan note is still illustrated with one of his portraits.
« Dans le monde d'aujourd'hui, toute culture, toute littérature et tout art appartiennent à une classe déterminée et relèvent d'une ligne politique définie. Il n'existe pas, dans la réalité, d'art pour l'art, d'art au-dessus des classes, ni d'art qui se développe en dehors de la politique ou indépendamment d'elle. La littérature et l'art prolétarien font partie de l'ensemble de la cause révolutionnaire du prolétariat ; ils sont, comme disait Lénine, "une petite roue et une petite vis du mécanisme général de la révolution". » ["In today's world, all culture, all literature and all art belong to a determined class and follow a defined political line. There does not exist, in reality, art for art's sake, art above classes, nor art that develops outside of politics or independently of it. Proletarian literature and art are part of the whole of the proletarian revolutionary cause; they are, as Lenin said, 'a small wheel and a small screw in the general mechanism of revolution'."] Mao Ze Dong, Interventions aux causeries sur la littérature et l'art à Yenan, 1942.