BEIJING — His portraits were among the most recognizable in the world, rivaling the Mona Lisa.

But few have heard of Wang Guodong, the Chinese artist who for years was responsible for painting the enormous portrait of Mao Zedong — replaced annually — that gazes down on Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

Mr. Wang, who was 88 when he died on Friday at a hospital in Beijing, was chosen in 1964, when he was in his early 30s, to be the official painter of the 15-by-20-foot oil portrait of Mao that hangs steps from the party’s central seat of power, at the Gate of Heavenly Peace.

Portraits of Mao have been installed there since 1949, when the Communists took power in China; they are frequently replaced because they are exposed to the elements. (A portrait of Chiang Kai-shek, the Nationalist leader who lost the civil war to Mao’s Communists, had hung there previously.)

The job was one of the highest — and most intimidating — honors available to a painter in China. In a sign of Mr. Wang’s stature in Communist Party circles, a funeral was held for him on Sunday at Babaoshan, the cemetery in Beijing reserved for party elite, Beijing Youth Daily reported. Mao Xinyu, Mao’s grandson, was said to have sent a wreath.