Visual Reportage from China, c1890

Bound sets of Chinese huabao, c1890.

D.B. Dowd, an illustrator, visual journalist and teacher in St. Louis, Missouri, is at work on an exhibition project called Drawing Conclusions: The Illustrator as Reporter, projected for 2014 and including historical examples of illustrated press from China. I stumbled Dowd's posts about these today and am very excited to see more.

In 1872, a Chinese daily newspaper called Shenbao was launched by a British publishing interest that employed Chinese reporters, editors, illustrators and printers. After initial success and some format experiments, the group introduced illustrated supplements called huabao ("pictorials"), beginning in 1884 with Dianshizhai Huabao and later Feiyingge Huabao. Below is a spread from the first issue of Dianshizhai Huabao describing a battle of the Sino-French War.

Wu Youru, "Forceful Attack at Bac Ninh," Dianshizhai Huabao #1, 1884.

And here is another characteristic huabao news image, describing a trainwreck reported from America in 1890.

Visual report of American trainwreck by Wu Youru, Feiyingge Huabao, September 1890.

Detail of above image by Wu Youru.

Along with a lot of great information about visual reportage more broadly, Mr. Dowd assures he'll write more these pictorials in coming posts on his blog: ulcercity.blogspot.com 

Best of luck, Mr. Dowd, and thanks for sharing.