In commemoration of great cartoonist Zhang Leping, an exhibition is currently on display at the museum to showcase collections from NAMOC about his Sanmao comics.

Zhang Leping is a famous cartoonist in the modern times. He devoted his lifetime to cartoon creation and is famous for his serial comic book called Winter of Three Hairs. Many generations grew up with the book and Sanmao has become a household name.

Zhang Leping loved the children, because of which most of his artworks are about the children. After the first session of the book was published in 1935, the cartoonist completed the serial book based on accumulated experience during the eight-year anti-Japanese war. The comic book made a big hit after published between June 1947 and late 1948 on Ta Kung Pao in Shanghai. Zhang Leping was called “father of Sanmao”.

Zhang Leping donated the original manuscript of Winter of Three Hairs to the National Art Museum of China in 1983. The donation comprises a total of 234 sets, namely, 973 pieces of cartoons. The exhibition shows a total of 55 pieces of artworks from the collections.

Winter of Three Hairs tells about miserable life of an orphan called Sanmao suffers before New China was founded. As a symbol of vast poor children then, San Mao is clever, optimistic and courageous. Zhang Leping continued his creation on Sanmao in the 1970s and the 1980s, who is a boy loving science and law.