Mao

In 1972, Richard Nixon visited Mao Zedong, leader of the People’s Republic of China, in an effort to ease diplomatic relations between China and the United States.  As a figure of fame and power at a moment of political and historical significance, Mao captured Andy Warhol’s attention. Despite having stopped painting in 1965 to focus on his films, Warhol returned to the medium with a series of silkscreened paintings featuring Mao. Warhol—whose subjects include Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Kennedy Onassis—developed his approach to the silkscreen process by appropriating an already-reproduced image, transferring it onto a silkscreen, placing it on a canvas, and applying ink from the back.