Andy Warhol published the Mao complete portfolio in 1972. It is one of Warhol’s most iconic and controversial series, comprising 10 screenprints of Mao Zedong in bright Pop Art colors. 

By the time Andy Warhol transformed the founder of the People’s Republic of China into a pop-art icon, Mao Zedong had immortalized himself and greatly transformed China; but the Cultural Revolution was coming to an end. In the late 1970s, economic reforms began to nudge China away from the command economy, and Warhol’s silkscreen adaptation of Mao foreshadowed China’s eventual shift into western markets. His decision to rework Mao’s globally recognizable portrait would create an interesting synthesis between PRC propaganda and mainstream pop art. One could now touch Mao’s portrait, thus inviting a critical gaze.