This badge picture features one of the most iconic Mao images ever produced. It shows a youthful and resolute Mao. His posture and clenched fists are symbolic of his will-power to carry forth the communist revolution. This image was based on a 1967 oil painting by a young artist named Liu Chunhua. 900 million copies of this painting were supposed to have been printed and distributed during the Cultural Revolution. It has been described by Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, as a “model painting” and served as a standard for later pictorial representations of Mao. Huge numbers of badges were produced at the height of the Cultural Revolution, from 1966 to 1969.
