Introduction to Kang Maozhao

Kang Maozhao (1919-1994), a native of Wuchang, Hubei Province, was a member of the Communist Party of China. In 1938, he went to Yan'an to participate in the revolution. In the same year, he was sent by the General Political Department of the Eighth Route Army to work as a reporter for the 115th Division. From 1941, he served as the propaganda officer and section chief of the Political Department of the 115th Division. In 1942, he started photography activities. In 1943, he participated in the founding of "Shandong Pictorial". Serves as president and editor-in-chief concurrently. During the War of Liberation, he served as the frontline branch director of the East China Field Army of Xinhua News Agency. In 1948, he served as the political commissar of the Third Regiment of the East China Artillery. In 1949, he served as the deputy director of the Propaganda Department of the Political Department of the Eighth Corps of the East China Field Army. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, he worked in diplomacy and served successively as counselor at the embassy in India and Afghanistan, deputy director of the Information Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, charge d'affaires in Yugoslavia, ambassador to Cambodia and Mauritania, ambassador to Belgium and missionary to the European Economic Community Ambassador to Luxembourg. During the war years, he took hundreds of valuable historical pictures with excellent journalistic and artistic qualities, and all of them were given to the Chinese Military Museum after the founding of the People's Republic of China. In the diplomatic work, he still insisted on photography practice, never leaving his camera, and took more than 2,000 color photos, making great contributions to the photography of China's Liberated Areas and New China.