Date: Fri 25-Sep-1998

Publication: Ant

Author: SHIRLE

Quick Words:

Chinese

Full Text:

Chinese Advertising Posters Find A New Home At Pagoda Red In Chicago's

Bucktown

w/cuts

By Susan and Al Bagdade

CHICAGO, ILL. -- Betsy Nathan of Pagoda Red came to wider public attention

when she attended Sanford L. Smith's Chicago International Antiques and Fine

Art Fair last May. Nathan had lived in Beijing for several years and had

amassed a collection of Chinese and Tibetan antiques. She opened her Bucktown,

Ill., boutique in a large loft last November.

Nathan attracted attention with her fascinating collection of Chinese

advertising posters. She first became interested in them from reproductions

she had seen. Pickers in China then scoured the countryside, where they found

many original advertising posters. Considered capitalist and anti-communist,

the posters were supposedly destroyed during the cultural revolution. Until

1996, no English materials were written about these delightful graphics.

Nathan travels to China several times a year to secure merchandise for her

growing gallery. Presently, print dealers, not poster dealers, are most

interested in this work. In Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong, the values of

these posters are going up, but interest in the United States is just starting

to develop.

A brochure from a recent exhibit at the Sam Tung Lik Museum in Hong Kong noted

that "posters can be enjoyed as visual documents of economic and social

history and as works of artistic merit."

The Asiatic Lithographic Printing Press was established in 1915 in Hong Kong

by Kwan Wai Nung, the painter and commercial artist called the "king of

advertising posters." Many notable painters involved in advertising posters

included Kwan Tso Mou, Zhou Muqiao, Kwan Ho Snag and others. Their facilities

included up-to-date lithography presses, a photographic studio, and a

plate-making room.

Advertising posters were printed by color lithography with very fresh and

vivid colors. They were inexpensive to produce and could be printed in large

quantities. A range of products was depicted in these posters. The work was

well done by these artists and reflected the current taste. For many artists,

advertising art was probably their main source of income. Business was

expanded to Southeast Asia, Shanghai, and Canton. The zenith of advertising

posters was from the 1920s to 1930s.

The primary subject of the advertising poster, regardless of the product, was

usually a comely woman, fashionably dressed and gracefully posed. The female

image completely dominated the poster.

Many advertising posters included the central picture flanked by lunar and

solar calenders on either side. Calendars were important in Chinese culture.

Posters were used as art work in homes even though they advertised a

particular product. The borders were usually quite decorative, and the

surroundings were beautiful. The message implied that the good life could be

achieved by buying the particular product being advertised by the lovely lady.

Numerous posters in the 1920s and 1930s advertised cigarettes such as Glade,

Magpie, Pirate, Three Castles and Golden Dragon. The British American Tobacco

Company (BAT) in Shanghai was the biggest foreign company in the country

before World War II. BAT produced Hatamen cigarettes. The Nanyang Brothers

Tobacco Company, which moved from Hong Kong to Shanghai, spent huge amounts

advertising Great Wall cigarettes.

Posters for alcoholic beverages showed that people favored whiskey and beer

which reflected the British influence on taste. Advertisements were also

produced for carbonated water and soft drinks.

Many posters depicted Chinese herbal medicines as well as Western

pharmaceuticals and numerous cosmetic products.

There were also posters for various industries and services including banking,

shipping, and insurance as well as ads for consumer and industrial products

such as soya sauce, leather goods, firecrackers, cement and textiles. Ads were

produced for cottage industries as well as small factories.

Some of the calendar posters were mounted with brass strips or wooden rollers.

Themes were modeled after the popular New Year pictures and told historical

stories and legends, operatic stories, as well as showing images of flowers,

animals, and landscapes. Painters utilized the techniques of Chinese

traditional painting and New Year pictures to make these advertising posters.

Much attention was paid to fine details when they merged the Chinese

techniques with Western sketching and watercolors. Chinese artists made great

use of color in their posters.

Many posters depicted the changing social status of women. The Western

concepts of equality were introduced into China. Women were shown with more

self confidence, with skirts in shorter lengths, necklines were lower, waist

lines were more visible. Poster art was generally mare daring than what women

were wearing of the streets of Shanghai.

Smaller poster ads were also found in cigarette packs from the 1920s as

souvenirs in the same way that American bubble gum had sports cards. These

small cards were an important source of ads for the tobacco companies. They

were printed with the figure on the front and the cigarette trademark on the

back. People had large collections of these cards. An ad for the Shanghai

Kunlun Cigarette Company stated that "smoking this brand will make your mind

clear and calm. The quality and taste are very good. Our company applies the

most advanced production methods, so the quality of all our products is

excellent."

Animal puzzle pieces were also found in cigarette packs, and smokers had to

keep buying more cigarettes to complete the animal figures.

Just as the rise of advertising posters was linked to the birth of a

capitalist commodity market in China, under Japanese occupation the calender

poster art was halted. Some posters continued to be made that reflected

political criticism and opposition to the Japanese imperialists.