NOT SOLD (BIDDING OVER)
0.00USD+ applicable fees & taxes.
This item WAS NOT SOLD. Auction date was 2003 Nov 13 @ 19:00UTC-5 : EST/CDT
ANDY WARHOL
(1928-1987)
MAO (ORANGE)
signed and dated "73" on the overlap; stamped with Estate and Foundation seals and numbered "PA80.006" on the overlap
synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen on canvas
26 x 22 in. (66x 55.9 cm)
executed in 1973
ESTIMATE: $350,000-450,000
PROVENANCE
Acquired directly from the artist's studio
Peter Brant, NEW YORK
Private collection, NEW YORK
In 1972, Andy Warhol embarked on a series of portraits of Mao Tse-Tung, a project that represents a significant turning point in the artist's career. Warhol's Mao paintings inaugurated a fertile period of renewed creativity for the artist, spawning his success as a society portraitist throughout the 1970s.
As the present work demonstrates, the Mao series perpetuated many of the distinguishing characteristics of Warhol's Pop art. Since the early 1960s, Warhol had turned to popular culture for his iconography, appropriating photographs and graphic symbols from the mass media. His paintings of Campbell's Soup cans, Coca-Cola bottles and movie stars reflected the essential consumerism of contemporary American culture. A similar interest in popular, iconic imagery informed Warhol's Mao paintings, which were also based on a pre-existing photograph. Warhol derived this silkscreen from an official state portrait of the Chinese leader that graced the cover of a book entitled QUOTATIONS FROM CHAIRMAN MAO TSE-TUNG. Yet, the Mao series also announced a dramatic departure in Warhol's handling of paint. Unlike his earlier canvases, where layers of color were mechanically squeege through silkscreen, the Mao paintings featured loose, painterly gestures. In the present work, for example, the viewer notices how broad strokes of paint describe the subject's torso, as well as the background. When coupled with the mechanical silkscreen of the figure, these painterly gestures appear ironic. Their expressive potential seems squandered on the imperious reserve of the Chairman's state portrait, yet Warhol creates a sophisticated composition. It is explained that the "Mao series confirms another striking about-face in Warhol's portraiture. Having eliminated all visible traces of the artist's touch in his work of the 1960s, Warhol redeploys the painterly gesture. This reversal is paralleled by the translation of the Chairman Mao, dour enemy of the United States during the Cold War, into a brightly colored, expressively painted Pop icon" (N. Baume, ABOUT FACE: ANDY WARHOL PORTRAITS, HARTFORD, 1999, pp. 94-96).
Warhol's Mao series also reflected a heightened public interest in Chinese culture at the time of their creation. In 1971, the People's Republic replaced Nationalist China in the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council. Equally momentous was President Nixon's historic and controversial visit to communist China in 1972. In the wake of these events, Mao Tse-Tung's image was widely recognized by a broad American public. It has been explained that "If Warhol can be regarded as an artist of strategy, his choice of Mao as a subject - as the ultimate star - was brilliant. The image of Mao, taken from the portrait photograph reproduced in the Chairman's so-called Little Red Book, is probably the one recognized by more of the earth's population than any other - a readymade icon representing absolute political and cultural power. In Warhol's hands, this image could be considered ominously and universally threatening, or a parody, or both" (K. McShine, ANDY WARHOL: A RETROSPECTIVE, NEW YORK, 1989, p. 19).
Auction Location:
United States
Previewing Details:
Saturday November 1, 2003 10am to 5pm
Sunday November 2, 2003 1Pm to 5pm
Monday November 3, 2003 10am to 5pm
Tuesday November 4, 2003 10am to 5pm
Wednesday November 5, 2003 10am to 5pm
Thursday November 6, 2003 10am to 5pm
Friday November 7, 2003 10am to 5pm
Saturday November 8, 2003 10am to 5pm
Sunday November 9, 2003 1Pm to 5pm
Monday November 10, 2003 10am to 5pm
Tuesday November 11, 2003 10am to 5pm
Wednesday November 12, 2003 10am to 5pm
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