-- Text by He Yining. Originally published in: Lebart, Luce and Marie Robert. A World History of Women Photographers. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2022.
Hou Bo [1924.9.17—2017.11.26] is one of the most famous female photographers，known as the "red wall photographer" for taking full-time photos for Mao Zedong and the leading comrades of the Party Central Committee between 1949 to 1961.
Hou Bo was born in Xiaxian, Shanxi Province on September 17, 1924. He joined the Communist Party of China at the age of 14 and later completed his education from middle school to university in Yan'an. In 1942, he married Xu Xiaobing (1916-2009), a famous photographer, and began to study photography during her early life. After the Anti-Japanese War, Hou Bo followed Xu Xiaobing to the Northeast film studio (now the predecessor of Changchun Film Studio). She was assigned to be the section chief of the photography section. Here, she learned more complex photography techniques and engaged in film photography.
In 1949, Hou Bo was appointed as the chief of the photography section of Beiping film studio. In the same year, she was transferred to Zhongnanhai as the chief of the photography section of the Security Bureau of the general office of the CPC Central Committee. She became the full-time photographer of Chairman Mao Zedong. In the next 12 years, Hou Bo took hundreds of precious photos of various political activities of Party and state leaders, including the founding ceremony, national day, sessions, inspections, meetings with heads of state and friends, interviews with famous people from all walks of life, visits to urban and rural people, and presides over important meetings of the Party Central Committee. After she finished her service at the Zhongnanhai，she worked as the senior photograph reporter at Xinhua News Agency，and also the honorary chairperson of China Women's Photographers Association.
Since 1986, Hou Bo and her husband Xu Xiaobing have held various exhibitions of photographic works in China, Japan, France and Britain. In 2003, a documentary film about Hou Bo, shot by French historian Claude Hudelot and Jean-Michel Vecchiet, was screened at the Arles International Photography Festival in France.
Hou Bo died on November 26, 2017, in Beijing at the age of 93 due to invalid medical treatment. According to incomplete statistics, her more than 400 photos of Mao Zedong have published successively, which can be called the most important photographer in the red period of China.
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