Xu Xiaobing

Xu Xiaobing 徐肖冰 (16 August 1916 – 27 October 2009) was a Chinese cinematographer, filmmaker, and photojournalist. The Chinese Communist Party commissioned Xu and his wife, Hou Bo, to make an official photographic record to share with the Chinese and world public of Party leaders, scenes of battle, and vignettes of everyday life during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and especially of Mao Zedong from the 1930s down to the 1960s. The couple shot many of the best-known photos of Mao and other leaders.

Xu was a member of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and President of the Chinese Photographers' Association. Xu Xiaobing, Hou Bo, and Lu Houmin have been called the best photographers of Mao.

Xu Xiaobing was born in 1916 in Tongxiang county, Zhejiang, to a family that had declined socially and economically. He was first schooled at home, then, at his grandfather's insistence, sent to a local traditional school, where he studied the Confucian classics.

Xu went to Shanghai in 1932 and began his career in the photographic division of the Tianyi Film Company, then in the Mingxing Film Company, though he was not involved in A list films. These studios were known for their careful use of Hollywood cinematographic styles, which Xu studied and absorbed, and Shanghai in the 1930s was also a place where international art and photography flourished. When he lost his position at Mingxing, his friend Wu Weiyun introduced him to a studio in Wuhan, then, when war broke out in 1937, another friend, Wu Yinxian introduced Xu to the Northwest Film Company (西北电影公司任职) in Taiyuan, in the Northwest province of Shanxi.

Xu, along with other left-wing photographers, such as Cai Shangxiong made his way to the Communist controlled areas outside Xi'an. He joined the communist Eighth Route Army and was assigned to its Yan'an Film Studio (延安电影制片厂). He and Wu Yinxian were cinematographers for Yuan Muzhi's Fighting Combine: Nanni Bay, as well as battlefield documentaries of his own. Party leaders as the war with Japan continued became even more eager to establish film studios to make their case both to the Chinese public and world opinion, and Xu was quickly given resources and responsibilities. In the summer of 1938 Xu made his first photo of Mao, taken while the rising leader was addressing a training session on military tactics.

...
Wikipedia