The display of more than 50 ancient Chinese woodblock New Year prints opened Sunday in the China Contemporary Literature Museum in Beijing.

The 600-year-old prints were made in Yangliuqing town in north China's Tianjin Municipality. The craftsmen say it is the first time that the pictures have been displayed in Beijing in the past 300 years.

The display, a part of the revitalization program for the Yangliuqing New Year pictures, is sponsored by the government of Xiqing District in Tianjin, where the town is located.

Xiao Peizhi, vice head of the district, said the local government has made unremitting efforts to develop this traditional artistic form in the past few years. The government has collected a large number of documents about the prints and financed 20 related workshops.

An association of Yangliuqing New Year prints was founded by the government and the art is incorporated into the textbooks of local schools.

Besides the exhibition, a folk art festival is scheduled to be held close to this Spring Festival, which falls on February 9, 2005.

Sharing the fame with Taohuawu, Yangjiabu and Zhuxianzhen, Yangliuqing woodblock New Year pictures were very popular in mid Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

(Xinhua News Agency December 20, 2004)