Mao Tse-Tung

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Andy Warhol added Mao Tse-Tung to the celebrities he featured in his work when President Richard Nixon’s historic visit to China in 1972 drew attention to the country’s leader. These portraits are from a portfolio of ten screen prints of Mao that Warhol created that year. All are based on the image used as the frontispiece of Mao’s The Little Red Book, a compilation of his quotations. The dramatically different colors and gestural marks applied over and around Mao’s face gives each print a distinctive presence. Warhol subsequently portrayed Mao in paintings, prints and drawings, as well as on wallpaper, certainly appreciating the irony of commodifying the Communist icon.

Keywords

American
Screen print
Frontal
Chinese
Communist
Pop Art
Male