Genuine one-of-a-kind hand-painted propaganda posters and art from North Korea. These unique and rare watercolor and oil paintings of political memorabilia make for a great gift idea--for yourself, or for the person who has everything. We're DPRKcool on the Web.
This is some of the most difficult artwork in the world to buy, as most of it cannot be legally exported from North Korea--and it's not easy to get the legal artwork out, either.
To some, this artwork is viewed as a permanent reminder of what life was like--and still is like--behind the Iron Curtain of totalitarian communism that has been at loggerheads with the "Free World" for the latter half of the Twentieth Century.
To others, this artwork bears testament to a proud country that desperately wants to take charge of its own destiny without the plague of foreign interference that has infested the Korean peninsula since the Japanese occupation that began nearly one hundred years ago.
With its unique blend of Confucianism, Maoism and Stalinism, North Korea (which is officially recognised by the UN as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea) is the last bastion of Cold War Era communism that has little evolved since the 1950s. It is one of the least visited countries with only about 1,500 Western tourists a year.
Propaganda art has been used throughout history the world over to control the hearts, minds and actions of citizens. In North Korea, these never subtle, yet artistic, propaganda messages are as commonly displayed on billboards and murals throughout the country as advertising is in the industrialized world.
Many political observers in the West view the North Korean leadership's penchant for brinkmanship as destabilizing not only North-East Asia, but also the world. However, North Korean sympathizers argue that the country is protecting itself from Western corruption, particularly that from the U.S.
In the West, North Korea is seen as a serious military threat, with one of the world's largest standing armies, significant dug-in heavy artillery, and likely biological, chemical and possibly a few nuclear bombs, plus medium-range ballistic missiles. However, North Korea regards this build-up as taking a strong defensive stand, promoted as the "Army First" or "Songun" policy "to maintain independence or become the colonial slaves of imperialism."
Despite the significant sacrifice the allied countries made on the Korean peninsula against what was regarded as incursions of totalitarian communism, the Korean War in the West is just as often the "Forgotten War". By bearing witness to state-sanctioned propaganda art from a political system as far different from our liberal democracies as is possible, we can reflect upon the ideologies, political metaphors and myths disseminated by the Hermit Kingdom, while we ponder and question those broadcast from our own governments.
Many Western observers question how much longer this reclusive country will exist. We question how much longer will this powerful and aesthetically appealing artwork be produced. Note that printed Chinese propaganda posters have recently been sold at action for upwards of USD $10,000.
We will be auctioning off our limited collection as well as expanding into other types of art, from woodblock prints to traditional Korean artwork--all produced in the DPRK. There is so much demand for these items that we are selling most of our items through other channels, but we intend to put as much as we can onto eBay. View our other items.
Insight into DPRK Propaganda & Social Realist Art
If the pen is mightier than the sword, then the paintbrush is perhaps mightier.
Throughout the world, the propaganda poster has been used as a medium for communicating political and ideological direction to a country's population, to the extent of brainwashing that population into fidelity and blind obedience.
The North Korean style of propaganda is highly developed and as ubiquitously displayed in all public places as advertising is in our industrialized society.
The similarities between socialist propaganda art and capitalist style advertising are noteworthy; both attempt to create dreamers, both with their strategies for selling a lifestyle and a brighter future.
These propaganda posters are intended as short-lived pieces, each predominantly consisting of a slogan reinforced by a painted image that reveals the cultural, political and sociological ideals of the country. Even though the artistic input in making the propaganda poster is high, the finished piece is rarely seen as an art form, that is, a piece of work to be considered for its aesthetic; rather it is the use of art to extol the virtues of how to strive for or how to defend the construction of an ideal society.
Ideology aside, many artists and art critics find this art to be a fascinating and even a beautiful means of expression. These works immediately convey state-sanctioned messages and can invoke the strong emotions that conjure up pride, loyalty and even anger.
The Creation of North Korean Propaganda Art
The original artwork is commissioned from the various art studios in Pyongyang and there is also a specific university course and studio dedicated to "poster art". The artists are chosen or compete to portray the selected slogan and their aim is to enforce its message with strong visual language. The artwork is not signed though a record of the artist's name is kept.
The originals are painted in gouache normally on card or heavy grade paper. Depending on its intended, use the artwork is either copied by hand or put into print and distributed around the country where it is used in such institutions as schools, factories and offices, or re-painted on massive billboards in the city and countryside. Since 2000, a number of "Western style" advertising billboards have been erected along the streets in Pyongyang and are often backlit for impact in both the day and night. Usually hand painted propaganda pieces or computer-generated posters are displayed.
While it is possible to identify individual artists' work, the posters have almost no personal artistic expression or individual subtext. They are purely functional, aimed at getting across official ideas, values and norms. The realities of DPRK society cannot be read through propaganda art.
Deciphering North Korean Propaganda Art
Posters vary dramatically in their imagery depending on the content of the slogan; some posters are used to promote public health and social campaigns as well as to encourage people to behave like model citizens, while others are to inspire vigilance and to promote hatred of the "American aggressor". The human figures in these posters (workers, military and educationalists) are shown as young, fresh, robust and enthusiastic, verging on the superhuman.
The characters are painted to reveal such characteristic as youth and vigour, action (construction of a "strong country"), stature (often larger than life; an embodiment of perfection) and emotion (often resolve, pride, effort, joy, strength, determination or aggression). The figures therefore portray exemplary behaviour, they are there to inspire the workforce, show self-sacrifice, working for the greater good, devoted to the government, the Juche philosophy (the uniquely North Korean ruling ideology of self-reliance, where man is the master of his destiny), building a "strong country" and support for its "army first" doctrine.
Images put forth a desired reality. Female and male characters are often depicted as youthful superwomen and supermen, with large hands, muscular figures, faces that look like they are from one mould, but differentiated by poise and hair length, with perfect skin and teeth. The posters portray the three classes: the military, the worker intellectual and the laborer. The military are portrayed as sacred heroes, sacrificing themselves for the benefit of society, completely devoted to the cause of the Juche ideology.
These images provide youth with an identity as fighters for the socialist revolution, workers and intellectuals embody the collective spirit deriving joy not just from his/her own work but in his/her ability to participate in the collective effort under the wise guidance of the Party. All paintings are designed to reflect the un-hierarchical unity and single-minded heart of the people.
DPRK propaganda posters have developed their own style: sharp, block colours with two tones depicting light and shade with objects and figures outlined in a heavy black line. They are highly stylised, strident, graphic images. The figures do not confront the viewer rather they stare into a more perfect future. Colour symbolism is present: red is of course used as a colour to identify the sacred, the revolution, while black is often used to express evil. Of note is that the gaze of the figures is not directly at the viewer (as in many Russian and Chinese propaganda posters), the gaze into the far distance is an invitation to participate in a glorious future, in building and realizing the dreams of Kim Il Sung's utopia, the "People's Paradise".
"Arts and culture are subordinated to political and economic aims and considered to be a tool for facilitating a Communist revolution."
Excerpt from Korean Paintings of Today, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Pyongyang, 1980.
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North Korea officially prefers to be called the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea". South Korea's official name is the Republic of Korea (ROK).
How can you get these items out of North Korea?
North Korea, despite what is commonly believed, is not a completely closed-off country. While it is the least visited country in the world, it does indeed welcome tourists, and even Americans have now and then been admitted (the door was again open to Americans in October of 2005 but was abruptly shut this past August).
Most posters are for internal use and only a few are seen by the outside world. Most of our knowledge on the propaganda art of DPRK comes from photographs of the poster hoardings usually taken by the very few westerners who visit the country, or in the few DPRK art books that are available to be purchased in North Korea.
What about the recent U.N. sanctions?
The recent United Nations sanctions are only applicable to military and weapons-related items.The acquisition and re-sale of these posters do not violate any sanctions imposed by the United Nations.
Resolution 1718 (2006), which was adopted by the U.N.'s Security Council on October 14th, 2006, is predominantly focused on the funding, development, manufacture and trade of military and weapons technology. The Council decided that all Member States shall prevent the import from or export to the DPRK of any "battle tanks, armoured combat vehicles, large calibre artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, missiles or missile systems" as well as "related materiel including spare parts" and items "which could contribute to DPRK's nuclear-related, ballistic missile-related or other weapons of mass destruction-related programmes."
Why don't more people travel to North Korea?
While tourism is permitted and encouraged, it is necessary to book through the official government-run tourist agency for a completely supervised tour. Tourists are given the best of their modest accommodation, food and transportation.
While the country is one of the poorest in the world, the tours are not inexpensive at over USD $1,000 a week.
A visit to North Korea is like travelling back in time; little has changed in the country since it was founded in the 1950s. Some observers note the similarities between the infamous Cultural Revolution of China and today's North Korea: monumental architecture, the deification of the leaders, wide usage of propaganda posters and slogans, and a population constantly in uniform.
What is special about this artwork?
Anything rare and unique is often collected, from dinosaur fossils through to meteorites, Byzantine mosaics through to antiquarian books.
An investment in propaganda posters and art from North Korean today will capture for posterity what some describe as an Orwellian world of absolute state control, devotion to society and the smothering of individualism.
Plus, many regard such North Korean propaganda artwork to be more aesthetically pleasing than the more widely available former Soviet and Chinese propaganda art, both of which have appreciated significantly in value since production. Recent auctions of printed Chinese propaganda posters have sold for over USD $10,000.
Once framed, these posters and works of art can definitely accent any room.
Isn't North Korea part of the "Axis of Evil"?
It is widely believed that a former White House speechwriter, David Frum (a journalist originally from Toronto, Canada), coined the term "Axis of Evil" for the January 29, 2002 U.S. Presidential State of the Union Address.
Since two Muslim countries, Iraq and Iran, were labeled as being significant security threats to the United States, some pundits have argued that a third non-Muslim country was included so as not to appear to be launching a crusade against Islam.
As discussed above, North Korea is viewed by many as being security threat to the peace of North East Asia, with one of the world's largest standing armies, strategically placed and dug-in heavy artillery, and likely biological, chemical and possibly a few nuclear bombs, plus the recently developed Taep'o-dong 2 medium-range ballistic missile.
However, some North Korean observers, such as Wellington's Victoria University Professor Tim Beal, who recently published "North Korea: The Struggle against American Power," argue that North Korea is being kept bottled up as a problem nation by China and the U.S., essentially being used as a wild card in a game of Realpolitik over the fate of North East Asia.
By being North Korea's Big Brother--as the only official ally of North Korea and in extending a significant portion of North Korea's aid--China gains regional power through its political and economic influence. Plus China is slowly absorbing control over much of North Korea's key strategic resources, state owned entreprises and labour.
Likewise, with North Korea kept as a problem nation, the U.S. can justify its military presence in North East Asia. While only having 32,000 troops in the Republic of Korea, the U.S. controls the ROK military with a four-star U.S. General in charge of the Combined Forces Command. Plus the North Korean threat further justifies the American bases in Japan and the U.S. Navy's 7th Fleet's permanent status as forward-deployed battle-ready.
Did the Korean War end?
No. North Korea and the U.S. are the two signatories over a cease-fire in 1953. Tensions are so high that the war could break out at a moment's notice. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton called the DMZ between the North and South "the scariest place on Earth".
We are respectful of those Koreans, Chinese, Americans, Canadians and others who fought in the Korean War. The Twentieth Century was marred with the blood of an estimated 160 million who died through war and genocide. Our perhaps specious belief and hope is that education will lead to greater understanding of the causes of war, and ultimately longer lasting peace.
The celebrated author and journalist, Robert Elegant, has commented on the huge sacrifice that the Americans and other allies had made in the Korean Peninsula. At the height of the Cold War, the Americans took a stand, which, in his opinion, set the tone for all future conflicts that ultimately prevented the Soviet Union and the U.S. from directly fighting. Two nuclear-armed superpowers at war would have literally changed the face of the Earth.
Are you sympathetic to the interests of North Korea?
By presenting these items for sale, we do not endorse nor celebrate North Korea. We merely are providing access to items for collectors, historians, and others to better tangibly understand this most unusual and isolated of countries.
By buying these items, am I supporting North Korea?
While these items are sourced from North Korea, and indeed money is paid to North Korean artists, the amount of money involved pales in comparison to the billions of dollars worth of food and fuel aid that North Korea has been receiving in recent years.
There is a great deal of controversy over this aid that China, the U.S. and Japan have given to North Korea, as some view the aid as propping up the North Korean regime. However, many political observers view maintaining the status quo as the least costly option compared regime collapse or all out war.
One of North Korea's largest funding source has been, ironically enough, thousands of Japanese citizens of Korean ethnicity who are sympathetic to the North, and have been annually delivering a large piece of the Pachinko Parlor profits pie (a tolerated gambling racket in Japan) estimated to be between USD $600 million to one billion.
This artwork for sale is about as far from military spending as one can get. It is worth noting that North Korea symbolically elevated artists to the same level as the farmers and labourers by adding a traditional Korean calligraphy brush to the somewhat standardized communist symbol of the hammer and sickle.
Are these items really from North Korea?
Buy with confidence! Likely you have never before seen these types of North Korean items for sale--not on eBay, and not anywhere else. That's because these items are so hard to procure--and most cannot be legally exported from the country.
Many are bought from the north of the country at the Rajin-Sonbong Economic Special Zone (Rason) and are usually ultimately sourced from the Pyongyang-based Propaganda Art Studio. Some might have exhibited on the street while others were in excess production.
How did we get these products?
Our business partners have asked that we do not reveal our sources in order to protect their other North Korean business interests (and we are appreciative that these other business interests are of a benign nature, involving cultural exchanges).
We can tell you about Channel2, the company behind the eBay User ID north_korean_art. Not only have the founders visited North Korea, but we also have worked at eBay for a combined 6 years and have been selling professionally on eBay since 2002 using various eBay User IDs as separate online brands. We stand behind the products that we sell and we completely guarantee that these items were genuinely created by North Korean artists trained at North Korean Art Propaganda schools.
Many products, artwork and propaganda posters for sale in China today are reproductions of North Korean items, created by Chinese copy-cat artists. From time to time, some of these items have ended up for sale on eBay. We do not deal with such sources as we bypass China and source directly from North Korea.
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This is some of the most difficult artwork in the world to buy, as most of it cannot be legally exported from North Korea--and it's not easy to get the legal artwork out, either. 
With its unique blend of Confucianism, Maoism and Stalinism, North Korea (which is officially recognised by the UN as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea) is the last bastion of Cold War Era communism that has little evolved since the 1950s. It is one of the least visited countries with only about 1,500 Western tourists a year.
Despite the significant sacrifice the allied countries made on the Korean peninsula against what was regarded as incursions of totalitarian communism, the Korean War in the West is just as often the "Forgotten War". By bearing witness to state-sanctioned propaganda art from a political system as far different from our liberal democracies as is possible, we can reflect upon the ideologies, political metaphors and myths disseminated by the Hermit Kingdom, while we ponder and question those broadcast from our own governments.
Throughout the world, the propaganda poster has been used as a medium for communicating political and ideological direction to a country's population, to the extent of brainwashing that population into fidelity and blind obedience.
These propaganda posters are intended as short-lived pieces, each predominantly consisting of a slogan reinforced by a painted image that reveals the cultural, political and sociological ideals of the country. Even though the artistic input in making the propaganda poster is high, the finished piece is rarely seen as an art form, that is, a piece of work to be considered for its aesthetic; rather it is the use of art to extol the virtues of how to strive for or how to defend the construction of an ideal society.
Posters vary dramatically in their imagery depending on the content of the slogan; some posters are used to promote public health and social campaigns as well as to encourage people to behave like model citizens, while others are to inspire vigilance and to promote hatred of the "American aggressor". The human figures in these posters (workers, military and educationalists) are shown as young, fresh, robust and enthusiastic, verging on the superhuman.
Images put forth a desired reality. Female and male characters are often depicted as youthful superwomen and supermen, with large hands, muscular figures, faces that look like they are from one mould, but differentiated by poise and hair length, with perfect skin and teeth. The posters portray the three classes: the military, the worker intellectual and the laborer. The military are portrayed as sacred heroes, sacrificing themselves for the benefit of society, completely devoted to the cause of the Juche ideology.
North Korea, despite what is commonly believed, is not a completely closed-off country. While it is the least visited country in the world, it does indeed welcome tourists, and even Americans have now and then been admitted (the door was again open to Americans in October of 2005 but was abruptly shut this past August).
While tourism is permitted and encouraged, it is necessary to book through the official government-run tourist agency for a completely supervised tour. Tourists are given the best of their modest accommodation, food and transportation.
Anything rare and unique is often collected, from dinosaur fossils through to meteorites, Byzantine mosaics through to antiquarian books.
This artwork for sale is about as far from military spending as one can get. It is worth noting that North Korea symbolically elevated artists to the same level as the farmers and labourers by adding a traditional Korean calligraphy brush to the somewhat standardized communist symbol of the hammer and sickle.
