From Mao Zedong to Chiang Kai-shek: rare shots of 1930s China captured by unbiased lens of Swiss photographer – exhibition

China experienced significant socio-political upheaval during the 1930s, driven by the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and the 1937 attacks on Beijing, Shanghai and Nanking.

Swiss photojournalist Walter Bosshard, who lived and travelled extensively in China from 1933 to 1939, was there to capture it in black and white – and through an unbiased lens – one of only a few journalists to record this critical decade in the country’s history.

Now Hongkongers can get a glimpse of his work, courtesy of “Bosshard in China: Documenting Social Change in the 1930s,” an exhibition at the University Museum and Art Gallery (UMAG) of the University of Hong Kong from April 27 to August 5.

The photographs give a rare and unbiased insight into life in China at the time, as Bosshard traversed the country, from Beijing to as far as Lake Qinghai in western China, capturing important events such as the Battle of Yan’an in Shaanxi province, to the more mundane as seen in his shots of Mongolian shepherds on the steppes to children playing with paper kites in the streets of Beijing.

He also photographed and interviewed key political figures including Communist Party leader Mao Zedong, Chiang Kai-shek –- the leader of the Republic of China between 1928 and 1975 – and Chiang’s wife Soong Mei-ling.

“Walter Bosshard’s vast collection of photographs is particularly important and interesting just for the variety of topics documented,” says Dr Florian Knothe, director of UMAG.