Winning works at the previous Liu Kaiqu Awards are on permanent display at the Wuhu Sculpture Art Gallery. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Liu was a member of the design team for the Monument to the People's Heroes in Tian'anmen Square, which was completed in 1958.

The sculptural reliefs on the monument show 10 key events between the start of the First Opium War in 1840 and the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

Liu also sculpted dozens of statues of important figures in modern China, such as the great Chinese statesman Sun Yat-sen. And he portrayed unsung heroes, including soldiers fighting Japanese invaders and farmers toiling on land.

Today's sculptors work in quite a different context－social stability and material affluence.

Yu Chenxing, a teacher of sculpture at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, won this year's only gold award for his work, Prediction.

The stainless-steel sculpture that is several meters high depicts a Chinese abacus but with a new look.

The giant abacus gradually narrows on one side to a pointed end, looking like a silver ladder stretching up high into the sky.

Yu says: "The abacus is a great invention, but we no longer rely on it for calculations. So the reason the abacus matters to us now is not for its form but for the wisdom the age-old tool encapsulates that we can still relate to."

He says the work invites the audience to not only take pride in China's rich, longstanding civilization but also to ask what today's Chinese can do to create a new height of thinking.