During the Republican Period, Shanghai was a main centre for the production of mass media poster art. In the burgeoning metropolis, poster art was diverse, rich and often commercial, as can be seen in the Calendar posters.

From the late 1930s China was war-torn first by the Anti-Japanese War (1937- 1945) and subsequently the Civil War between the Communists and the Nationalists (1947-49) known as the Liberation War.

Accordingly, arts became increasingly involved in the turbulent currents of Chinese politics, with patriotism, nationalism, and social protests as the main themes. After the “Long March” the Communists built their base in Yanan (1936-1948), where new Marxist oriented guidelines for the production of arts were stipulated in Mao’s famous “Yanan Talks”: now the main function of the arts was “to serve the people”, which effectively meant party politics.