BEIJING, June 29 (Xinhua) -- The National Art Museum of China on Friday held a sculpture workshop to celebrate the upcoming 97th anniversary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on Sunday.

At the gallery in Beijing, sculptors made statues based on photos of Jiao Yulu, a Party cadre widely known by Chinese people.

Jiao went to Lankao, a poor county in central China's Henan Province, to work as Party secretary in 1962 and led people there to combat sandstorms and floods until he died of liver cancer at the age of 42 in 1964. His story was later made into a film that touched the whole country in 1990.

"We held the workshop to honor the memory of a role model who will be forever remembered by the country and its people," said Wu Weishan, curator of the museum. "The work of the sculptors showed understanding of the spirit of Jiao."