Speaking of the indissoluble relationship between the panda painter Liu Zhong and China Post, it goes back to 1983, when Liu Zhong's watercolor painting "I Love the Great Wall" was selected as China's first set of children's stamps. Since then, Liu Zhong has cooperated with China Post to design and issue a number of sets of themed stamps and postcards, such as "I Love the Great Wall", "Double Treasure Map", "Cherish the Environment, Harmonious Coexistence", "Giant Panda" and so on. Since then, Liu Zhong's masterpieces have continued to be excellent, and he is particularly good at paintings with giant panda themes, and has been awarded the honorary director of the Sichuan Post Chengdu Panda Post Office and the honorary director of the Hebei Post Shanhaiguan Great Wall Theme Post Office. At the same time, he is enthusiastic about public welfare undertakings, is the initiator of the "I Love Giant Panda" International Children's Postcard Painting Competition, and is also the initiator of the Panda Art Development Fund of the China Literature and Art Foundation.
The painter Liu Zhong is also a painter with a sense of social responsibility and mission. On the occasion of the opening of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics 500 days, the painter Liu Zhong presented a long scroll of "Ten Thousand Miles of Ice and Snow National Treasures" painted over two years, with a length of 202.2 meters, in which more than 5,000 national treasure giant pandas were painted through the expression of Chinese ink painting, and thus alluded to the 5,000 years of Chinese civilization. The 24 important passes of the Great Wall and the Forbidden City building in the distance of the picture jump on the paper, showing the glorious achievements of the Chinese nation to the world. The national treasure giant panda, which is cute, interpreted 109 groups of ice and snow sports projects, and used anthropomorphic techniques to portray the Olympic athletes who competed passionately. With the representative elements of Chinese culture, when it shows the infinite charm of ice and snow sports to the world, it also popularizes the ice and snow culture of the Winter Olympics to people.
On October 27, 2021, the long volume exhibition of "Ice and Snow National Treasure Wanli Map" was officially unveiled at the Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall. On the day of the opening ceremony, with the approval of China Post Group Co., Ltd., Beijing Postal Branch launched 2 publicity stamps of the "International Panda Day" digital anti-counterfeiting postage machine designed by Mr. Liu Zhong on the same day, conveying to the world the Chinese people's ardent expectations for the Winter Olympics, including one self-adhesive type and one printed type. The ice and snow national treasures have also pushed Mr. Liu Zhong's "postal relationship" with China Post to the peak again.
On January 31, 2022, on the eve of the opening of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, China Philatelic Co., Ltd. specially made the "Ice and Snow National Treasure Wanli Map" into a stamp album of the same name. In addition to displaying the "Ice and Snow National Treasure Wanli Map", the album is also equipped with the large edition of "The Year of Nongyin", the "Great Wall" package, the "So Many Petite Rivers and Mountains" miniature sheets, as well as 6 personalized stamps of "Bamboo" and 6 personalized stamps of "Sports", to help the Winter Olympics with postal culture.
On February 20, 2022, the closing day of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, with the approval of China Post Group Co., Ltd., a "Ice and Snow National Treasure" digital anti-counterfeiting color postage machine publicity stamp (printed type) was launched at Suzhou Post Branch in Jiangsu Province on February 20, 2022.
This time, China Post joined hands with panda painter Liu Zhong three times to issue postage machine publicity stamps and first day covers with the prosperity of the Beijing Winter Olympics as the node of great historical significance. The Winter Olympics not only provide a competitive place for athletes from all over the world to show themselves, but also build a good exchange platform for promoting world peace, realizing cultural integration, and transmitting civilizational friendship, which has a positive impact on promoting the integration of Chinese and Western cultural exchanges and enhancing national self-confidence. From active preparations to the successful holding of the Winter Olympics, painter Liu Zhong went all the way to create "Ice and Snow National Treasure Ten Thousand Miles Map", using the Chinese symbol of the popular theme "National Treasure Giant Panda" as a carrier to popularize the knowledge of ice and snow sports, help drive 300 million people to love ice and snow sports, and create a peaceful and harmonious humanistic background. The huge long volume integrates aesthetics, knowledge and education, combines the Olympic science popularization and painting art, and brings together the Olympic spirit, the ideal of peace and friendship, and the world cultural exchange, expressing a high degree of integration and harmonious symbiosis between art and sports, man and nature. As a bridge to build a mass cultural vision, China Post not only enriches the spiritual and cultural life of the masses, but also shows the excellent culture of the Chinese nation and the spirit of the Winter Olympics to the world.
Introduction to the painter Liu Zhong
Liu Zhong, born in 1969 in Beijing, China, holds a master's degree in plastic arts from the French Ministry of Education. He is currently a director of the China Artists Association, a researcher of the National Academy of Painting of China, a deputy secretary-general and executive director of the Chinese Painting Society, a senior member of the Youth Federation of central state organs, a former member of the Standing Committee of the Beijing Youth Federation, an honorary director of the "Panda Post Office" of Chengdu, Sichuan, an honorary director of the "Golden Monkey Post Office" of China Post Sichuan Mianyang, an honorary director of the "Great Wall Post Office" of Hebei Shanhaiguan, a publicity ambassador of The Great Wall Post of Hebei Province, a panda propaganda ambassador of Sichuan Ya'an, a panda blood publicity ambassador of the Beijing Red Cross Society, a propaganda ambassador of the mother water cellar, and a "I love giant panda" of China Post. He is the initiator of the International Children's Postcard Painting Competition and the initiator of the Panda Art Development Fund of the China Literature and Art Foundation, and is known as the "First Person to Paint Pandas in China". His works have been selected and exhibited in many countries such as the United Kingdom, France, the United States, Russia, Egypt, Canada, Spain, Italy, Norway, Singapore, Japan, Monaco, Switzerland, Finland, Latvia, Mongolia and other countries, and have won awards in domestic and foreign competitions for many times, and have been collected by many museums at home and abroad.