More on Socialist Art

The famous artist Frida Kahlo was known for her unusual symbolic and at times surreal art. In the below picture she has the face of Karl Marx’s face connected to a fist over her right shoulder and a dove and a world globe over the left. It’s a stylish painting in which she was becoming more political as she got older. The other painting, to the right, is a poster from the Chinese Cultural revolution from the 1960s or 1970s. While it has color to it, the characters are mostly black and white and cartoonish, while also being symbolic of various professions. They have some red coloring, which is similar to the style of the graphic novel turned film “Sin City,” written by Frank Miller.
This is a propaganda poster, but it follows the artistic style of many of the comic books that were widely printed and distributed during China’s push to educate adults. Comics were seen as a tool to get people to read, so the country could wipe out literacy.