Great Leap Forward
12-oz Yanjing at Tian An Men Square, Beijing, China
The paternal visage of Mao Tse-tung gazes out like a watchful father in this ground-breaking work. During this time, Kun Pai worked as a staff photographer for the Communist mouthpiece The People's Daily. He displayed little indication of the greatness that would follow, until one fateful day on Tian An Men Square.

Strolling on the square with colleagues after lunch on a summer day in 1981, Kun Pai on a whim placed a can of Yanjing lager on a balustrade and snapped a photo. He thought little of it until several days later, when the film was developed.

Kun Pai was awestruck by the photo, and at first tried to hide it from his superiors, fearful that the juxtaposition of Mao's image with that of a lowly beer can would be seen as disrespectful. But the photo was soon discovered by a reformist editor at The People's Daily, who recognized the inherent genius in Kun Pai's first work.

"Great Leap Forward" soon became circulated among the upper echelons of China's Communist Party, where Deng Xiaoping was consolidating power. Deng recognized that the photo could become a useful tool in demythologizing Mao's public image, and launched a propaganda campaign based on the work. Soon, reproductions of "Great Leap Forward" were ubiquitous throughout China, and Kun Pai became the nation's first star of beer photography.