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Rating: 
Summary: Mao's Great Big Red Book.
Review: Michael Wolf collected the hundreds of posters shown in this sumptuous book and it occurred to me while looking through the pages that the originals have probably been seen by more people than any others in the world. They were stuck up in every public place (including homes) and published in magazines. Predictably many of them show Chairman Mao, the Great Leader, Teacher, Helmsman, Commander urging the masses forward with the wise fertiliser of his thoughts. To reinforce greatness artists were not allowed to paint figures above his head. The posters are organised according to the thirty-three chapters in Mao's Little Red Book. Chapter twenty-three, Investigation and Study, has some interesting images including an 1981 painting of various jet aircraft and one from 1978 showing two open hands encasing a stylised atomic graphic. Not all Chinese posters just show peasants looking to the future. I was surprised to see some quite creative painting styles, for instance, Chao Deren has a brush stroke style similar to the best of the European movie poster artists, Deng Xiu and Zhang Ruiheng could easily have been doing fiction illustrations in the American consumer magazines of the fifties and sixties. Perhaps the strangest poster paintings are those of babies and children, the faces are all rather plump and adult looking, as if the artists imagined this was how a baby Mao looked This large 320 page book is beautifully designed and printed and if you are interested in political posters or colorful graphics you'll enjoy it. BTW, Taschen have been rather naughty by replacing the head of a child, in one poster, with a head icon they use as a competition promotion. It doesn't spoil the book for me but I thought it rather unnecessary.
Rating:
Summary: Propaganda ART
Review: This is a great book. So many images. I was expecting mostly communist propaganda posters, and a lot of the same message in similar style over and over - but there is so much more. In fact most of the images are more art or paintings than posters. Tons of images - and notice - 14.5" - this book is HUGE! Another good source book by Taschen.
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