Amy Alznauer

The author tells the true story of the Zhou Brothers, who, as she relates in her Note, were born in the 1950s during the early days of the People’s Republic of China, and came of age during Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution.

The Cultural Revolution was actually an “anti” culture movement that aimed to purge any capitalist and/or traditional elements influences from Chinese society. A group calling themselves Red Guards policed the country to enforce Mao’s directives compiled in the “Little Red Book,” and denounced those thought to oppose the Revolution.

This era was characterized by massive imprisonment, persecution, and murder. Death toll claims vary widely, with estimates of those perishing during the Revolution ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions. Massacres took place nationwide, cultural and religious sites were ransacked, and historical relics and artifacts were destroyed. Notable scholars and scientists were killed or committed suicide. Schools and universities were closed ostensibly because they taught in a way we might today call “woke” but of course the real reason, then like now, was that knowledge is power, teaching people to think freely, and thus ipso facto a threat to the ruling regime. The movement lasted from 1966 until 1976.

[It should be noted that the horrors of the Cultural Revolution followed on the heels of the so-called “Great Leap Forward” - Mao’s effort from 1958-1962 to catch up with the economy of the West, in which, according to one historian, “At least 45 million people were worked, starved or beaten to death in China over these four years.”]

The Zhous had a bookstore, making them prime targets for the Cultural Revolution. The father was taken before the youngest son was born, the mother taken later, and a sister was sold away. The remaining family members were exiled to the Da Ming Shan mountain range to do hard labor. But during this time, each of the brothers produced art separately, mostly experimental sketches that would inform later collaborative pieces. The brothers reunited in 1973 and began their work as collaborative artists, at first in secret.

During the loosening years of the end of the Cultural Revolution, the brothers began to paint openly as part of acceptable government projects. When Mao died in 1976, they had more opportunities to pursue their art.

The Zhou Brothers left for the United States in 1986, settling in the Bridgeport area of Chicago, Illinois where they still reside and work, while exhibiting nationally and internationally. The author reports that not only did they rise to fame after starting all over with nothing, but today the brothers, who now go by the names ShanZuo and DaHuang, have an art center in Beijing as well as in the U.S. She writes, “The brothers hope to share their story to give other artists, even very young ones, the courage to struggle through their own mix of love and trouble until a new magic is born.”

The painterly illustrations for the book are done by ShanZuo and DaHuang themselves.… (mer)