Existing comment:
Young Woman
Man with Coat and Hat
Boy with Hat in Winter
During Mao's "Down to the Countryside Movement" (proletariat reeducation), Hung Liu was forced to labor on the farmland of Dadu Lianghe, a village north of Beijing. She found a creative outlet in making sketches of villagers whenever the community was summoned to listen to revolutionary propaganda on a loudspeaker. She also drew portraits of workers and children she encountered throughout the day.
Drawing during the Cultural Revolution was a hopeful act for Liu, an assertion of her creative spirit and a recognition of the individual despite the era of mass indoctrination. Her charcoal portraits from the early 1970s, three of which are shown here, are casual and expressive. They reflect the instruction Liu had received during her middle and high school years, when she often sketched from live models and plaster busts.
Charcoal on paper, 1972–75
Collection of Hung Liu and Jeff Kelley |