Zhang Zhenshi
Chinese painter (1914-1992)
Zhang Zhenshi (Chinese: 张振仕; 1914–1992) was a Chinese portrait painter and fine art educator. He is known for his portraits of the Chinese leader Mao Zedong, one of which has become the most reproduced image of Mao of all time. The paintings are among the most famous portraits in China.
Life
Born in Liaoyang of Liaoning Province, Zhang graduated from the Western Painting Department of the Jinghua Art Academy in 1936. He would later serve as a teacher at National Beiping Art Training School, editor-in-chief of the journal Art and Life (艺术与生活, Yishu yu shenghuo), deputy-editor of Chahar Illustrated (察哈尔画报, Chaha'er huabao), and as a professor at Liaoning Provincial Art Training School, National Changbai Normal College, and the Central Academy for Industrial Art.
In 1977, he produced the portrait of Zhou Enlai that can be seen in the National Museum of China and was awarded the title of "advanced worker" by the Ministry of Light Industry and the Central Academy for Industrial Art.
Portrait of Mao Zedong
Zhang is best known for his portrait of a solemn Mao Zedong dressed in a simple gray tunic. Commissioned as one of 30 paintings of the chairman, in honor of the first anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the portrait was Mao's favorite and reproduced on posters throughout China.
From 1950 to 1957, he was on the team that created the huge oil painting of Mao Zedong hanging from the Tiananmen (which is modeled on Zhang's portrait).
Original
Zhang's original portrait was set to go on auction on 3 June 2006 through the Beijing Huachen Auction Company (at an estimated value of US$120,000), with no location restrictions on its sale.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3575383. VIAF identifies the subject as 246571768. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1914, 1992, 1936 and 1977.
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This entry incorporates text from “Zhang Zhenshi” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.