Recently the IISH purchased a large collection of Chinese propaganda posters and related materials from the years 1949-1979. The Frenchman Jean-Yves Bajon gathered this collection while he lived and worked in Shanghai from 1994 until 2000. In 2001 Bajon published Les années Mao. Une histoire de la Chine en affiches, featuring an extensive selection from his collection, which comprises over 500 posters not yet present in the IISH/Landsberger collection. Topics and periods are well-distributed, from the rise of the People's Republic through the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution to the years of gradual liberalization.

In addition to posters, the collection comprises over 500 picture postcards featuring small reproductions of posters and about one hundred illustrated booklets. They provide the context of the posters and reveal their role within a broader range of propaganda media.

The few dozen catalogues from poster publishers are especially interesting: these illustrated brochures reveal the selection of a publisher from a given year, including images and extensive data. Such catalogues enable a comprehensive reconstruction of the complete official poster production and visualize the appearance and disappearance of themes and motifs. In the years ahead, the IISH hopes to collect such catalogues systematically.

The IISH purchased the Bajon collection thanks in part to financial support from the Friends of the IISH, the Zuster Mart Nienhuis Stichting, and the SNS Reaal fund.

Posted 20 May 2009 - Go to News Index