Exhibit chronicles China’s print art development since 1930s

Print is a medium for mass communication, which has enabled artists to become known to a wider audience and democratized the ownership of art.

The Prints – A Riot of Colors, an exhibition featuring some 130 prints created by generations of Chinese artists, with the oldest dating back to the 1930s, opened on Monday at the Guardian Center in Beijing.

An online auction of most of the showpieces held by China Guardian Auctions is running in tandem with the exhibition.

Presented chronically, the show - divided into five sections - “aims to afford art collectors and the general public alike with an opportunity to learn about China’s modern, contemporary print art through a comprehensively-curated show and further explore the market value of prints,” said Liu Zehui, curator of the show.

In 1931, famed writer and social activist Lu Xun championed the New Woodcut Movement in Shanghai. He promoted the modern woodcuts, which were popular in the West but still essentially a Chinese form whose techniques reached maturity during the Tang dynasty (618-907), as the most accessible and efficient vehicle for circulating new revolutionary thought among the masses.