After Selling His Blood

Huang Xinbo, born in 1916 in Guangdong Province, was a print-maker, painter and comic artist. In 1934, he was admitted to the Shanghai School of Fine Art to study Western painting and joined the Woodcut Research Society. In 1945, he arrived in Hong Kong and worked as a field reporter in China Business Daily until early 1947. As a founder of the Human Art Club, he also established Human Publishing House in 1946. After going back to the mainland in 1949, he was appointed professor of the South China People Academy of Literature and Art (1950), Chairman of the Guangdong Division of the China Artists’ Association (1956), Chairman of the Guangdong Division of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles (1960). After the Cultural Revolution, Huang presided over the resumption of the Guangdong Art Academy and the Guangdong Division of the National Association of Chinese Artists, and was the vice chairman of the Association. He has participated in many exhibitions such as “Original Block Prints by Huang Xinbo”, “Huang Xinbo Block Print Exhibition”, “50 Years of Chinese Woodcut Exhibition”. In 1980, Huang died of illness at the age of 64. After Selling His Blood was a piece produced by Huang Xinbo during his stay in Hong Kong. As a journalist, Huang was in frequent contact with people from all walks of life, cultivating a profound understanding of their living conditions. This piece depicts an unemployed man forced to sell his blood for a living. In agony, he experiences vertigo after undergoing the unpleasant process. Huang highlighted the subject of the work by structuring the image with a meticulous application of black and white tones and simple but refined shapes.