The University of Kansas
Spencer Museum of Art
Printed Art and Social Radicalism
Nightmare #2, 1989
Woodcut
Museum purchase: R. Charles and Mary Margaret Clevenger Fund, 2001.0081
View full record Zhao Yannian is a major figure in the New Chinese Woodblock Movement (Creative Print Movement), founded in 1931 by the social critic, writer, and intellectual father of the Chinese revolution, Lu Xun (1881-1936). Inspired by the technique, style and subject matter of such European artists as Käthe Kollwitz and Frans Masereel (both exhibited here), Zhao and other artists in the movement carved their own blocks and used their art to comment on current social and political events and to influence revolutionary politics.
Throughout his long career, Zhao has remained a bold and forceful social critic. Nightmare # 2 is part of a daring series that criticized the Cultural Revolution.
