Chairman Mao en route to Anyuan

During the earlier years of the Cultural Revolution, Liu Chunhua turned to socialist realism for creating portraits of Mao Zedong.

After the nonviolent strike of thirteen thousand workers, a majority of the miners enlisted as soldiers in the Red Army to support Mao and the Revolution.

In order for Liu Chunhua to create this artwork he studied old photographs and interviewed workers from Anyuan to ensure visual accuracy.

In 1963 he entered the Central Academy of Fine Arts where he painted Chairman Mao en route to Anyuan, which has now been reproduced over 900 million times.

In November 1969 a copy of Chairman Mao en route to Anyuan, painted by the Italian painter Luigi Carnevali, was hung in the Vatican Press Room in Rome.