Li Hua

Li Hua
BornMarch 6, 1907
Died(1994-05-05)May 5, 1994[citation needed]
Beijing
EducationMunicipal Guangzhou Art School (1926)
Kawabata Art Scho ol,[clarification needed] Tokyo (1930)
Known forPrintmaking
Notable workRoar China! (怒吼吧中国)

Li Hua (simplified Chinese: 李桦; traditional Chinese: 李樺; pinyin: Lǐ Huà) March 6, 1907 − May 5, 1994), was a Chinese woodcut artist and communist known for his participation in left-wing activities, was born in Panyu, Guangdong.

Career

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He graduated from the Municipal Guangzhou Art School in 1926 and remained there as a teacher.[1] In 1930, Li went to Japan to study fine arts at Kawabata ga gakkō (川端画学校, "Kawabata Art School") in Tokyo.[2][3]

Li returned to Guangzhou in 1932, after the Mukden Incident broke out, and served once again as a teacher at the art school where he had studied. At that time, he began to learn woodcutting art. He was influenced by Lu Xun who regarded him as one of the most promising woodcut artists of his generation.[4] In June 1934, Li founded the Modern Woodcut Society at the Guangzhou Art School with an initial membership of 27.[4][5]

He produced many woodcuts to protest against the invasion by the Japanese army and the decaying government that was led by Chiang Kai-shek. In 1935, Li produced the woodcut Roar, China![6]: 467–468  The woodcut depicts the front view of a "taut, muscular, and naked male body, bound and blindfolded".[6]: 468  Another one of Li's notable woodcut series was Raging Tide from 1947.[7]

In 1949, he became a professor of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, and continued his artistic creations.[8]

Despite Li not officially joining the Chinese Communist Party until 1953, his work had been associated with the leftist cause for many years.[4] Li died in Beijing at the Peking Union Medical Hospital in 1994.[citation needed]

Selected publications

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  • Li Hua (1995). Chen Yousheng (ed.). Chinese Woodcuts. Translated by Zuo Boyang. Foreign Languages Press. ISBN 978-7-119-00388-7.

References

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  1. ^ "Li Hua (1907-1995)". China Central Academy of Fine Arts.
  2. ^ 李樺(1907-1995) (in Chinese). China Central Academy of Fine Arts.
  3. ^ McCloskey, Barbara. Artists of World War II. London: Greenwood Press, 2005, ISBN 0313321531, page 10.
  4. ^ a b c CHANG-TAI HUNG (1997). "Two Images of Socialism: Woodcuts in Chinese Communist Politics" (PDF). Comparative Studies in Society and History. 39 (1). Cambridge University Press: 34–60.
  5. ^ Christer von der Burg (2003). The art of contemporary Chinese woodcuts. Muban Foundation. p. 39. ISBN 978-0-9546048-0-6.
  6. ^ a b Tang, Xiaobing (2006). "Echoes of Roar, China! On Vision and Voice in Modern Chinese Art". Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique. 14 (2): 467–494. ISSN 1527-8271.
  7. ^ "Li Hua 李桦 ( 1907- 1994 ) Panyu, Guandong". Chinese woodblock. Sweet Briar College. Archived from the original on November 8, 2009.
  8. ^ McCloskey, Barbara, page 10.

Further reading

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  • Xiaobing Tang (2007). Origins of the Chinese Avant-Garde: The Modern Woodcut Movement. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-24909-7.
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