Hua County Woodblock New Year Prints

Jianfeng Han, a native of Hua County, Henan Province, is a representative inheritor of the fourth national list of intangible cultural heritage projects for woodblock New Year prints. Born into a family of print-makers, he learned the craft from his elders as a child and began producing simple prints in 1976. From 1994 onward he visited veteran artisans across the region and travelled to other print-making centres to study and exchange techniques. After years of painstaking effort he recovered the nearly lost printing traditions of Lifangtun Village, restoring the original processes and methods. His prints are half-printed, half-painted, employing dyeing, brushing, daubing, and dotting techniques in bold reds, yellows, and greens. The resulting works are vigorous yet free-flowing, unrestrained, and refreshingly direct.