Created 14-Sep-07
Modified 18-Sep-07
After 1949, the newly founded Peoples Republic of China participated internationally in a series of trade fairs to push its exports. It was Moscow 1950, Leipzig (East Germany) in 1951, Prague (Czechoslovakia) in 1952, and so on. This series of photographs is the visual documentation of the China Exhibition Hall in Leipzig, German Democratic Republic GDR. The 'Leipziger Messe" opened its doors on Sept. 2 that year.
To my knowledge, this is a unique album, hand-crafted by the bindery W. Veit in Leipzig, as a presentation volume. The photo studio Brüggemann was commissioned to do the photography. The album contains 58 large, original (tipped-in), b/w photographs.
Topics covered range from woolen products and textiles to light industry (gauges & meters), the arts and crafts, metals and minerals, tobacco and tea, rubber, a multitude of agricultural products, carpets and other household items. A very interesting spectrum of export materials, only of interest to the expert I suppose. It should be pointed out that trade relations between the GDR and China developed rather rapidly from that point onward.
Scanned on an Epson 4990 as 300dpi 48-bit color TIFF files, converted to JPG at 100% (best compression).
Thomas H. Hahn
Ithaca, NY
© Thomas H. Hahn Docu-Images
