“We were told not to think of ourselves as artists,” Liu Yang said. “That's a stinky idea of the bourgeoisie.” Liu's version of the Mao portrait was displayed in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1979. (Photo: LAT)   Sept. 15 — It happens every year, under cover of darkness, in the waning days of September. The giant portrait of Chairman Mao in Tiananmen Square — flushed cheeks and trademark gray suit — is replaced by a new Mao. So little is known about the making (or rather, remaking) of this iconic image, it might as well have materialized out of thin air.

 

At least six painters are known to have freshened up the founding father of the People's Republic of China every year for the last 57 years. Most lived in relative obscurity, and three have taken their stories to the graves.

 

Today, Wang Guodong, 76, in frail health and hard of hearing. He worked on the big painting every summer from 1964 to his retirement in 1976, the year Mao passed away. That was the only time the brightly colored painting was temporarily replaced by a somber black-and-white photograph more appropriate for the mourning of the great leader.

 

Wang said he rarely received visitors and didn't like to talk about the past. Nor did he tend to think of himself as a master who should be credited for the famous portrait.

 

"Nobody is allowed to put their names on that painting," Wang said in a phone interview from his home in Beijing. "It's that way before, and it's that way now."

 

The biggest alteration to the official image happened soon after the 1949 revolution that brought Mao to power. The portrait of Mao on display during the ceremony of China's National Day showed him in an octagonal army hat and a coarse uniform. It lasted one year. Since then, Mao has appeared basically unchanged to the average eye, except maybe slightly older.

 

Why the yearly change, then? Because the portrait is hung outside and exposed to the elements, it can easily fade and crack. Instead of retiring the old canvas to a museum or storage house, the image is covered with gesso so a new one can be painted on top. When it is removed for repainting, it is replaced by an identical portrait that has been freshened. The two portraits rotate each year.

 

The repainting takes place each August and September. The switch typically happens a few days before the Oct. 1 national holiday.

 

At nearly three stories high, its size makes it a physical challenge to paint and transport, so for years the painting was done in a temporary tent by the entrance to the Forbidden City behind the gate of Tiananmen.

 

In the early 1970s, the workplace was upgraded to a secret art studio made entirely of metal, apparently to make it fireproof. To this day, it stands in an easy-to-miss corner of the Forbidden City, unmarked and cordoned off to the public, with no windows or visible doors except for vents near the roof.At the height of Mao's power, his face was reproduced and hung in homes, schools, factories across the nation. Demand was so great for public murals of Mao, as well as of other socialist icons such as Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, authorities asked Wang in 1975 to train a group of apprentices.

 

Wang selected 10 Beijing high school students, most of them art enthusiasts active in campus propaganda brigades. The criterion at the time was not so much artistic talent but political reliability. After all, the job is repetitive, and there is little room for creativity.

 

"We were told that if you were one of the chosen ones, you won't be able to paint anything else in your life but the great communist leaders," said Liu Yang, 49, who was 18 when he joined Wang's class.

 

For the next three years, the students learned the basics of portrait painting and how to never veer from the realm of the politically correct.

 

"Mao's face must be painted extra red to show his robust spirit," Liu said. "It can never be too yellow, which would seem sickly, like he hadn't eaten in days."

 

At the end of the training sessions, the best student was given the chance to show his work at Tiananmen.

 

The year was 1979, and Liu saw his canvas displayed for the first and only time before the nation. Few besides his teacher and classmates knew about it.

 

"Of course I was proud, but I couldn't brag about it," said Liu, who has no photograph of the crowning achievement. "We were told not to think of ourselves as artists. That's a stinky idea of the bourgeoisie. We are 'art workers.' We don't paint for ourselves. We serve the revolution."

 

"The rest of us had to leave because the country had demand for only one Mao painting a year," said Liu, who still paints portraits of Mao and other communist leaders from his tiny home studio in Beijing, where he hopes to capture a piece of the lucrative new market for nostalgic pop art.

 

The one apprentice, Ge Xiaoguang, has devoted nearly three decades of his life to the all-important portrait, shunning the spotlight and plying his trade in the metal shack in the shadow of Tiananmen. He reportedly earns about $250 a month.

 

"I don't like to be interviewed," said Ge, a slight man with frizzy, graying hair and a loosely fitting white tank top, as he cracked open a small unmarked door at the mysterious studio.