Mao Tsetung: A Selection of Photographs [HUO BO], 1976, hardback, red cloth boards with gilt-stamped title in English, 380 x 320mm, 220pp., with 200 colour plates depicting Mao Tsetung throughout his life, presented in chronological order, in original acetate jacket. Housed in cardboard slipcase, with original acetate jacket. Published by the Foreign Languages Press, Beijing.

"The purpose of this album, published two years after Mao's death, is to glorify Mao. The book reveals nothing about him that was not already known, but it reveals quite a lot about publishing and personality cults. Aside from a brief, unsigned preface, simple captions, and an index the album has no text - the photos were, after all, self-explanatory, oft-published images. Some of the most striking of them (Mao on the beach, Mao with students, and Mao inspecting the crops, for example [...]) are by Mao's official photographer, Hou Bo. Her imagte of Mao "on the People's beach" became the model for many statues of Mao in the years that followed. The compilation is both a visual expression of political ascendency and one of insecurity - underscoring the need to be everywhere, never out of sight or out of mind."-- Martin Parr & WassinkLundgren, The Chinese Photobook: From the 1900s to the Present, Aperture, 2015, pp.248-251.

Further Literature:

Parr & Badger, The Photobook: A History, Vol.I, p. 185