China: 'Making a Plan', revolutionary <i>nian hua</i> New Year print, Liu Jilu, Tianjin, 1950

"Nian hua" or New Year prints are bold and colourful Chinese woodblock prints, which date back at least to the seventeenth century. Mass-produced, affordable and designed to celebrate most notably the Spring Festival (also known as ‘Chinese New Year’), they are typically full of auspicious symbols for conferring wealth, longevity, happiness and good fortune on the family. Deities such as stove and door gods, flora and fauna, including the animals of the Chinese zodiac, and well-fed male babies are all common subjects of these posters. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) promoted new or ‘revolutionary’ "nian hua" as early as the second half of the 1920s, because the woodblock print was an attractive, familiar and accessible format, it appealed to the target rural audience, and was easily and widely distributable.