Beschreibung:

Andy Warhol Mao Portfolio (set of 10) 1972 the complete set of ten screenprints in colours, on Beckett High White paper each: 91.4 × 91.4 cm (36 × 36 in) Each signed in ball-point pen and stamp numbered on the reverse. This work is number one from the edition of 250 plus 50 artist’s proofs and is co-published by Castelli Graphics and Multiples, Inc., New York.
Provenance Alan Brown Gallery, Hartsdale, New York Acquired from the above by the present owner Exhibited Warhol in Colorado, Myhren Gallery, University of Denver, 2011 (another example exhibited) Literature Frayda Feldman and Jörg Schellmann, Andy Warhol Prints: A Catalogue Raisonné 1962–1987, New York, 2003, pp. 82–83 Catalogue Essay “ I don’t think art should be only for the select few, I think it should be for the mass of American people and they usually accept art anyway … I’m not the High Priest of Pop Art … I’m just one of the workers in it.” ANDY WARHOL 1972 marked the year President Richard Nixon travelled to China for the state visit to meet Chairman Mao Zedong with the goal of improving relations between the two countries. This event was widely covered by the media, making the portrait of Mao a potent image of political and cultural power. Having a keen eye for celebrity and popular imagery, Andy Warhol completed a series of ten colour screenprints that were based on Mao’s portrait. The optical effects of colour, the marks of the brush and the gestural drawings around the face used in this series manifest the new direction of Warhol’s style turning away from the mechanical-looking modality of his earlier screenprints. Read More Artist Bio Andy Warhol American • 1928 - 1987 A seminal figure in the Pop Art movement of the early 1960s, Andy Warhol's paintings and screenprints are iconic beyond the scope of Art History, having become universal signifiers of an age. An early career in commercial illustration led to Warhol's appropriation of imagery from American popular culture and insistent concern with the superficial wonder of permanent commodification that yielded a synthesis of word and image, of art and the everyday. Warhol's obsession with creating slick, seemingly mass-produced artworks led him towards the commercial technique of screenprinting, which allowed him to produce large editions of his painted subjects. The clean, mechanical surface and perfect registration of the screenprinting process afforded Warhol a revolutionary absence of authorship that was crucial to the Pop Art manifesto. View More Works