Zhao Rigetu is an important artist as well as a landmark figure in the promotion of Mongolian woodblock printmaking. His role is comparable to that of Koshiro Onchi for the Japanese sosaku hanga movement. And like Koshiro Onchi he had devoted much of his time and energy in instructing younger artists and paving the way for them through the difficult times when art was state controlled and when social realism was the only way for artists to express themselves.
In some of the text documents we received from Inner Mongolia/China, the artist was also written as Zhaorigetu - just as one word. The writing in two names Zhao Rigetu might be the adoption to the habit of Han Chinese of using a first and second name.
Zhao Rigetu (1928-2006), was of Mongolian descent. We have unfortunately little and unprecise information about him (a frequent problem for us both for artists in China as well as in Japan) inspite of his great importance for the development of Mongolian printmaking and for his influence on the younger generation. Most Mongolian artists are not yet so well organized and lack the feeling for precise and complete artist biographies and resumés compared to Western artists or their colleagues in other printmaking centers of China like Yunnan or "Bei-da-Huang".
Many print works of Zhao Rigetu attended art exhibitions in China (The original text might also be interpreted as "attended the National Chinese Art Exhibitions" - we do not know). Among the exhibited works are:
Art works of Zhao Rigetu were published in state periodicals. Zhao Rigetu translated and edited Mongolian language texts as fine arts reference for "Primary School and Foundation of Fine Arts". He founded the Jarud Banner Ethnic Print Study Society, and organized two times Jarud print exhibitions in Beijing.
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Sunday, November 08, 2009: On Active Events you find our thumbnail overview of current and coming auctions of contemporary Chinese prints. If you have any questions, please contact me. - Dieter