Banknote Database made by collectors, for collectors
Mao's Portrait on the 5th series of Chinese Yuan
September 17, 2022 @ 01:51
Mao Zedong's portrait on the fifth series of Chinese Yuan (or Renminbi, RMB) is one of the most well known banknote portraits. The story of how his likeness came to be on Chinese banknotes has to do with the death of one man and the obsession of another. The design of the fifth series began in 1988, but iconography was never firmly established for the faces of the notes, or if they would feature people or other things like animals or plants. This changed when China's leader Deng Xiaoping died in February of 1997. Choosing a single political figure would have been politically impossible before this happened. The choice of a single man to place over others on the country's banknote iconography went against the spirit of communism, Chinese money had often featured collectivist groups of people in the past. Almost immediately after Deng's death, within weeks, the People's Bank of China summoned an artist. It was obvious they had planned to place Mao on the banknotes in the past, because of the swiftness of the response. Mao had been on the money before, but never alone during the post-1949 period. Mao had been on private bank issued banknotes prior to 1949. In 1932, Mao Zedong had asked Mao Zemin of the Guojia Yinhang (National Bank) to prepare a banknote issue and to choose the composition. Engraver Huang Yaguang proposed Mao for the notes, but Mao disagreed and had Lenin put on them instead. Mao was insistent to never be shown on banknotes. Money was capitalism, after all. So while Mao had been on notes before, there was one person famous for painting him over, and over, and over again using a paintbrush. That's the artist the bank chose.
He was Liu Wenxi (1933-2019)(刘文西). According to his wife, Liu was absolutely obsessed with Mao and painted him hundreds of times. He rose to prominence with his 1957 painting "Chairman Mao and the Shepherd". Liu was actually a fantastic character artist and has some really beautiful work in his repetoire, but he's obviously most famous for painting the image on billions of banknotes. Before choosing Liu, the bank had to find a source image.
The bank committee had to choose an image of Mao to put on the banknotes, and there were of course thousands to choose from. They argued about how old or young Mao should appear, and it was decided to compromise. It is often reported that the image chosen was taken in 1949, when Mao was about 55 and at the Political Consultative Conference. 1949 was the year of the Chinese Communist Revolution. In fact it is well attested that the source image was taken in 1950 when Mao was meeting with students; there just weren't any from 1949 that were found to be appropriate for the banknote. He was busy forming a new communist nation, not sitting for portraits. Mao's portraits, including the one hanging in Tianenman Square, were almost all retouched by artist Chen Shilin. Chen would painstakingly carve Mao out of portraits and retouch him, and finally blend him in with a neutral background. For the photo used on the banknotes, Chen carved Mao out from the students and placed him in front of some curtains. It was a form of proto-Photoshop. In the picture, Mao is far away and even a bit blurry. It was simply the only one that had him facing in the right direction with the right composure. The bank sent it to Liu. The original and the retouched versions are shown here.
Liu Wenxi was giddy about the banknote commission, and reported that he was so excited about it he was unable to sleep. He had spent most of his adult life painting Mao in all sorts of poses in that trope of "20th Century Communist Art" that North Korea still tends to use. Liu painted Mao's portrait over a period of about 2 weeks, with two revisions requested by the bank. It was the first time a large portrait of a single individual had graced banknotes from the People's Bank. In interviews given before he died, he consistently maintained that out of thousands of works, he found the banknote portrait to be his most significant contribution to the world. His original 1999 portrait is shown here.
After passing the portrait to the bank, Ma Rong engraved Mao for use on the banknotes. She had won a competition in the summer of 1997 to be the artist to engrave the former Chairman. Ma would come back in 2015 to do the same work, but digitally this time. To go back to the story that the portrait of Mao is from 1949, the fifth set of renminbi was issued 1 October 1999 to mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of the modern nation. So the 1949 story is a teensy tiny bit of propaganda.
Since 1999, the fifth series of renminbi have been redesigned several times to add security features. The portrait changed several times in extremely minor ways before the 2015 rework. Most notably, the button. The 1999 100 Yuan note had a button with threads in an “=“ shape, while two other button thread types in an “x” shape have appeared. Below are shown the 1999 100 Yuan button, the 1999-2005 button, and the newest post-2015 button.
Mao’s portrait was completely redone for 2015 onwards digitally and is, very technically, completely different - although in very minor ways. An example is shown here of a bit of hair before and after 2015, with the older on the left and the newer on the right. Technically, every single element on the banknotes have changed since the update. This is especially apparent on the reverses, which we will examine in the future.
Chinese scholars have written that Mao’s portrait is shown above his name and years with the goal of painting him as a historical, rather than a political figure. He’s meant to tie together a large nation of many ethnic groups and languages and to portray his party as the rock that glues it all together. How would Mao feel about being on cash? Probably horrified. It's well attested that in his time he wanted nothing to do with the stuff. That's a testament to how far China has waded into capitalist waters. In future posts, we'll examine the design of the fifth series, some of the security features, and the paper and printing.