China
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| Born in 1927, in Taizhou, Zhejiang Province,
Zhu was brought up in a poor farming family, where he developed an interest
in traditional Chinese & Western painting. During his years as an art
student, he became involved in the progressive student movement and was
consequently expelled in 1946. He then returned to his home village and
became a village school teacher. In the same year he started his creative
career in woodcutting and began working for the magazine "Observe" in
Shanghai City, where he created many woodcuts reflecting the miseries
and sufferings of the people in those days. Later that year, the "Observe"
was banned by Shanghai authorities and he was arrested. After being released the next year, he resumed his woodcutting, creating work that explicitly exposed the inside jail. On May 28, 1949, the third day after the liberation of Shanghai City, he and 43 famous people such as Liu Kaiqu, Zhang Luoping & Yang Keyang issued a joint statement in Shanghai's "Da Gong Daily", declaring their support for the liberation of Shanghai City and their will to serve the people with heart and soul. He then joined and worked hard for the joint office of National Artists' Association, All National Woodcutting Association and the National Caricature Association. These three associations were established for the political situation after the liberation of Shanghai City since the victory over Japan. Later, he joined the Southwest Culture and Art Team of the PLA and went to Chongqing City. Since then he has successively been the head of the artists' group of Chongqing Daily; the deputy chief of Chonqing Art Gallery; Director of the artistic Editing room of Chongqing Publishing House; Vice Principal of Chongqing Social University; the Principal of Chongqing Special Institute of Art. At the same time he founded and became standing director of Sichuan Artists' Association; Commisioner of Chongqing Literature & Art Union; Vice Chairman and General Secretary & Advisor of Chongqing Artists' Association. His main published collections include: Collection of Woodcuts by Zhu Xuanxian, Chinese paintings of Flower & Bird, and Selected Collection of Landscape Woodcuts. |