The Communists early on saw the potential of folk art as a tool of propaganda. After taking power in 1949, they set up state-run collectives, schools and studios to control woodblock printers, calligraphy brush makers and other traditional artists and artisans, interrupting the passing of skills from father to eldest son that had stretched back centuries.

Because of their fame, the Clay Man Zhang figurines came in for special attention from the Communists. Premier Zhou Enlai asked the Zhang family to send one son to Beijing to teach its craft to art students. The family complied, and he was showered with titles and granted an audience with Mao. In Tianjin, the government opened a workshop and set up classes taught by the head of the family, Zhang Ming, a great-grandson of Clay Man Zhang.

With the onset of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, though, Mao sought to destroy traditional practices, including folk art, as obstacles to socialist progress. Zhang Ming’s descendants say he was beaten by his students, forced to drink buckets of soy sauce and vinegar, and subjected to mock trials for carrying on the family tradition. Other family members were attacked as well, the descendants say, and one committed suicide by throwing himself into a river.

Near the end of the Cultural Revolution, the government reopened the sculpting studio but stripped it of the Zhang name. Zhang Ming was given an honorary title, but he was physically broken and housebound, barely able to climb the stairs without help, relatives said.