Visual depictions of Kim Il Sung have been commonplace in North Korea since the 1940s following the example of Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union and Mao Zedong in China. The display of Kim Il Sung portraits was made mandatory at homes in the 1970s. In the past, they were mandatory in certain public places as well, such as factories, airports, railway stations, and rail and subway carriages. At present, they no longer appear in means of transport, not even in some new buildings. Portraits of Kim Jong Il have been hung next to Kim Il Sung since the late 1970s. A portrait of Kim Jong Un was displayed for the first time in public in 2018.
Rules regarding the placement and maintenance of the portraits are complex and change frequently. At homes, they should be placed on the most prominent wall in the living room with nothing else on it, high and looking downwards. Of importance, and subject to random checks, is that they are kept clean, a responsibility that usually falls on the lady of the house.
History
Since the 1940s, visual depictions of Kim Il Sung have been commonplace in North Korea. The practice was adopted from Stalin portraits in the Soviet Union and portraits of Mao Zedong in China. Displaying a portrait of Kim Il Sung in every house became mandatory in the 1970s. The state distributed such portraits and instructed people to display them in their living rooms. By Kim Il Sung's 60th birthday in 1972, North Korea had more leader portraits than the Soviet Union or China ever did. In 1972, the compulsory display of the portraits was extended to all factories, airports, and railway stations.
At the end of the decade, North Koreans were told to hang portraits of Kim Jong Il next to their portraits of Kim Il Sung. The regulation was put in place relatively late into Kim Jong Il's cult of personality. The reason was that he had little, and by 1980 virtually no, competition as the heir apparent. The order to do so became unofficially so that North Korean propaganda could claim that there was a spontaneous movement that supported Kim Jong Il. By around 1980, every office and home had the two portraits on display. In the 1980s, the rules on portraits were extended yet again to cover rail and subway carriages. Buses and trams were excluded for unknown reasons. Since the early 1990s, Kim Jong Il portraits have been the same size as those depicting Kim Il Sung, and their display has been standardized so that they are always displayed side by side. In the 1990s, a third kind of portrait was added that depicts Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung engaged in discussion about state management. High-ranking officials were given yet another portrait, that of Kim Il Sung's first wife and mother of Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong-suk. Offices, however, do not display this picture. In recent years, the portraits' societal importance has waned.
The image of Kim Il Sung underwent changes as he aged and according to political currents: early portraits from the 1960s have him in a Mao suit, while those from the 1980s depict him in a Western suit. Years after his death, he began to appear in the military uniform of Taewonsu (generalissimo). Images of Kim Jong Il, too, went from Mao suit to the Taewonsu uniform.
Under Kim Jong Un, the appearances of the portraits have become increasingly standardized. The current versions of the portraits consists of Kim Il Sung in a western-style suit and Kim Jong Il wearing his trademark green jumpsuit.
A portrait of Kim Jong Un was displayed for the first time in public in November 2018 during a visit of Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel to Pyongyang.
Andrei Lankov, an expert on North Korea, notes that the set of rules regarding the portraits changes frequently, making it "remarkable for its constant fluidity".