Mao (F. & S. II.92)
Mao (F. & S. II.92)
Signed Print
Andy Warhol
POA
This estimate blends recent public auction records with our own private sale data and network demand.
Screenprint, 1972
Signed Print Edition of 250
H 91cm x W 91cm
Critical Review
Fascinated by the mechanism of fame in popular culture, Andy Warhol creates a 1970s Pop Art icon out of the Chinese communist leader Chairman Mao in his print Mao (F. & S. II.92) from his famous Mao series (1972). Appropriating the official imagery of the Chairman,primarily used as a propaganda tool in Maoist China, Warhol manipulates the original photograph with unlikely colours to make an astute political statement amidst America’s involvement in the Cold War.
In this iteration of Warhol’s print, Mao’s face is depicted in a sickly yellow and his lips are turquoise green working to make a spectacle of the Chinese statesman without him knowing. By repeating his image many times over the course of a screen print series, Warhol portrays Mao as a commodity to be dispersed as a piece of mass-media in capitalist America.
Warhol explores a multitude of colour variations across the series to render each print unique,thus symbolically opposing the ideals of communism that Mao wished to uphold. Taking this point further, Warhol adds gestural dark lines to each print as a display of individualism, reminiscent of the American Abstract Expressionists. Deliberately misaligning the photographic image with the coloured ink layered on top, Warhol creates a jarring visual effect that makes this image both humorous and menacing.
