#zhang hongtu

Quaker Oats Mao. Zhang Hongtu (张宏图). 1987.

Zhang Hongtu (张宏图) is a Chinese artist who graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts. In his art, Zhang often combines eastern and western ideas, styles, and techniques in his art. Zhang left China for the United States in the early 1980s and currently resides in New York. 

InQuaker Oats Mao, Zhang criticizes the ubiquity and power of Chairman Mao Zedong’s image in China by imposing iconic features of Mao, such as hair and clothing, onto the Quaker Oats man. This pop art of Zhang’s was not well received by neither China, where Mao’s image was almost sacred, nor the Quaker Oats company, which was anti-Communist. 

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