Addresses by Madame CHIANG KAI-SHEK, February 18 1943

Signed by the Illustrator, Rudolph Ruzicka and presented to Mrs. Elkan Harrison Powell the wife of the President of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Signed on the front fly, New York, June 9, 1943: "To Mrs. E.H.Powell, with sincere regard of R. Ruzicka"

Addresses by Madame CHIANG KAI-SHEK, February 18 1943. Addresses Delivered before the House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States. Published
by The Overbrook Press, Stamford, Connecticut 1943. 10" x 7 1/4" 15 pages. This printing was of 100 copies on Papier de Chine. Illustrated and signed by Rudolph Ruzicka.

February 18, 1943: On this date, Madame Chiang Kai-Shek of China (wife of the Nationalist political and military leader Chiang Kai-Shek) addressed the House of Representatives and the Senate. In her speech, she applauded American efforts in the Pacific theater. She also recounted the friendship between the U.S. and China: "We in China, like you, want a better world, not for ourselves alone, but for all mankind, and we must have it." Chiang's visit also was meant to convey appreciation for the American Lend-Lease program, which supplied war materials to sustain the Chinese resistance effort. Madame Chiang holds the distinction of being the only female dignitary to address a House Reception—a common practice in the early part of the 20th century when foreign leaders addressed the House separately from the Senate.

"She was Born Soong May-ling in 1898 on the island of Hainan — site of the spy-plane incident that marked the first foreign policy crisis of the Bush administration — Madame Chiang was raised as a Christian and educated at Wellesley College where she graduated in 1917. Her sister, Ching-ling married Sun Yat-sen, the nationalist leader who created modern China after overthrowing the Qing imperial dynasty in 1911. May-ling married the young Kuomintang (KMT) general Chiang Kai-shek in 1926, a year after he'd taken control of the party and the year before the onset of a bloody civil conflict between the KMT and Mao's communists — a conflict that also marked a parting of ways of the Soong sisters, as Madame Sun Yat-sen made common cause with the communists." (Time Magazine)

*"Rudolph Ruzicka: A major twentieth century wood engraver, etcher, illustrator, book designer and typographer, Rudolph Ruzicka emigrated to the United States from Bohemia with his family at the age of ten. He lived first in Chicago and took drawing lessons at the Hull House School before becoming an apprentice wood engraver. While working he attended further classes at the Chicago Art Institute from 1900 to 1902. Rudolph Ruzicka moved to New York in 1903 and first gained employment as an engraver at the American Bank Note Company. During the following years he also attended classes at both the Art Students League and the New York School of Art.
Rudolph Ruzicka received his first major art commission from System magazine in 1910. During the following years his graphic art was the subject of many one man exhibitions including such venues as the Societe de la Gravure, Paris, the Grolier Club and the Century Association, New York. In 1935 he was awarded the Gold Medal from the American Institute of Graphic Art.
Rudolph Ruzicka moved to Massachusetts in 1948 and eventually settled in Vermont. Today the art of Rudolph Ruzicka is included in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Carnegie Institute, Library of Congress, Washington, DC, the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York" My thanks to Art of the Print for this information.