Explore the Later history and political changes of this artwork.
In February 1954 Gao Gang, the head of the State Planning Council, was purged from government; he killed himself only months later.  His presence in the painting immediately on Mao's left placed arts officials in a quandary.  Given its popularity among officials and the people, The Founding of the Nation had to be shown at the Second National Arts Exhibition (1955), but it was unthinkable that Gao, deemed a traitor, should be depicted.  Accordingly, Dong was ordered to remove Gao from the painting, which he did.
In erasing Gao, Dong expanded the basket of pink chrysanthemums which stands at the officials' feet, and completed the depiction of  Yongdingmen gate, in the original seen only in part behind Gao.  He was forced to expand the section of sky seen above the people assembled in Tiananmen Square, which affected the placement of Mao as the center of attention.  He compensated for this, to some extent, by adding two more microphones to Mao's right. Julia Andrews, in her book on the art of the People's Republic, suggested that Dong's solution was not entirely satisfactory as the microphones dominate the center of the painting, and Mao is diminished by the expanded space around him.  The modified painting was shown in the 1955 exhibition, and in 1958 in Moscow.  Although the painting was later altered again and does not exist in this form, this version is the one most commonly reproduced.When the Museum of the Chinese Revolution opened on Tiananmen Square in 1961, the painting was displayed on a huge wall in the gallery devoted to the Communist triumph, but in 1966, during the Cultural Revolution, radicals shut down the museum, and it remained closed until 1969.  During that time, Chinese president Liu Shaoqi, accused of taking a "capitalist road", was purged from government.  His removal from the painting was ordered in 1967, and Dong was tasked to carry it out.  Dong had suffered during the Cultural Revolution: accused of being a rightist, he was expelled from the Party for two years, sent to a rural work camp, and then was "rehabilitated" by being made to labor as a steelworker.  Dong's task was difficult, as Liu was one of the most prominent figures in the first row, standing to the left of Madame Song.  Officials wanted Liu replaced with Lin Biao, much in Mao's favor at the time.  Dong was unwilling to give Lin prominence he had not then had, and though he could not refuse outright at the dangerous time of the Cultural Revolution, he eventually got permission to merely remove Liu.  The figure was too large to simply delete, so Liu was repainted as Dong Biwu, and made to appear as if in the second row.  According to Andrews, the attempt was a failure: "the new Dong Biwu does not recede into the second row as intended.  Instead, he appears as a leering, glowing figure, a strangely malevolent character in the midst of an otherwise stately group".  Officials deemed the revised work unexhibitable.  Andrews speculated that Dong may have been trying to sabotage the change, or may have been affected by the stress of the years of the Cultural Revolution.
In 1972, as part of a renovation of the Museum of the Chinese Revolution, officials wanted to exhibit Dong's painting again, but they decreed that Lin Boqu, whose white-haired figure was furthest left, must be removed.  This was because the Gang of Four, then in control of China, blamed Lin Boqu (who had died in 1960) for opposing the marriage, in the revolutionary days, of Mao with Jiang Qing (one of the Four).  Sources differ on what took place regarding the painting: Chang-Tai Hung related that Dong, terminally ill with cancer, could not make the changes, so his student Jin Shangyi and another artist, Zhao Yu, were assigned to do the work.  The two feared damaging the original canvas, so made an exact replica but for the required changes, with Dong brought forth from his hospital for consultations.  According to Andrews, Jin and Zhao created the new version because Dong would not let anyone else alter his painting.  Jin later stated that the painting, while effective politically, also shows Dong's inner world.With the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976 and the subsequent accession of Deng Xiaoping, many of the purged figures of earlier years were rehabilitated, and the authorities in 1979 decided to bring more historical accuracy to the painting.  Dong had died in 1973; his family strongly opposed anyone altering the original painting, and the government respected their wishes.  Jin was on a tour outside China, so the government assigned Yan Zhenduo to make changes to the replica.  He placed Liu, Lin Boqu and Gao in the painting and made other changes: a previously unidentifiable man in the back row now resembles Deng Xiaoping.  The replica painting was restored to the Museum of the Chinese Revolution.The painting was reproduced on Chinese postage stamps in 1959 and 1999, for the tenth and fiftieth anniversaries of the founding of the People's Republic. Also in 1999, the museum authorized a private company to make small-scale gold foil reproductions of the painting.  Dong's family sued, and in 2002 the courts found that Dong's heirs held the copyright to the painting, and that the museum only had the right to exhibit it.  Joe McDonald of the Associated Press deemed the upholding of the copyright "a triumph for China's capitalist ambitions over its leftist history".  In 2014, the art museum at CAFA held a retrospective of Dong's works, exhibiting the small-scale draft of the painting, possessed by Dong's family, for the first time.  Fan Di'an, curator of the exhibition, stated, "The changes to the painting tell a bitter story, reflecting the political influences on art.  But it didn't affect Dong Xiwen's love of art."
Wu Hung described The Founding of the Nation as "arguably the most celebrated work of official Chinese art".  He noted that the painting is the only "canonized" one depicting the October 1 ceremony, and that other artists have tended to give the people's perspective, subjecting themselves to Mao's gaze.  The painting is a modern-day example of damnatio memoriae, the alteration of artworks or other objects to remove the image or name of a disfavored person.  Deng Zhangyu, in a 2014 article, called the painting "the most significant historical image of China's founding".  Wu Hung suggested that the alterations to it over the years, while always showing Mao proclaiming the new government, parallel the changes that have come to China's leadership during the years of Communist governance.  Andrews wrote that "its greatest importance to the art world was its elevation as a model of party-approved oil painting".  Writer Wu Bing in 2009 called it "a milestone in Chinese oil painting, boldly incorporating national styles".  The painting has never been as highly regarded in the West as in China; according to Andrews, "art history students have been known to roar with laughter when slides of it appear on the screen".  Art historian Michael Sullivan dismissed it as mere propaganda.  Today, following a merger of museums, both paintings are in the National Museum of China, on Tiananmen Square.
Jiang Qing National Museum of China Tiananmen Chinese art Associated Press Dong Biwu Gao Gang Chinese right rehabilitated purge Michael Sullivan perspective Chinese postage stamps Cultural Revolution proclaiming Yongdingmen Gang of Four damnatio memoriae Tiananmen Square propaganda Dong Xiwen China Lin Boqu Lin Biao left work camp oil painting Deng Xiaoping Liu Shaoqi chrysanthemum