With the advice and support of Visual Arts faculty, the HKBU Library started to build a collection on Chinese propaganda posters. This collection complements The Illustrated London News and rare periodical collections held at HKBU and provides a unique research collection of 19th and 20thcentury visual culture.
The themes portrayed in this collection include Chairman Mao, national minorities, international relations, politics and social issues in the Cultural Revolution until the fall of the Gang of Four, and Hong Kong’s handover. Highlights include the posters from the Hong Kong riots in 1967, visually illustrating the sentiment and the tension between the colonial government and the pro-communist local leftists.
This collection was later extended to cover posters from other Communist countries such as North Korea, Czechoslovakia, and Soviet Union. Mainly posters, some photographs and paper cutting are also collected.
