This print's parent portfolio was created as a fundraising initiative in 1973 to make it possible for the New York-based group Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) to donate a collection of American contemporary art to the Moderna Museet in Stockholm.

Warhol chose to produce a new series of 'Mao' works for the portfolio, moving away from his signature method of screenprinting to a more instant (and perhaps even more pertinent) method: toner prints produced using a photocopy machine. The typical description of the work’s medium is “sequentially reproduced Xerox print,” meaning that the prints were created by making a copy of Warhol’s original drawing of Mao, then using that copy to create another copy, and so on, ultimately degrading the clarity of the original image with each subsequent copy made. The image was distorted in two other ways: through enlargement and rotation, until only a handful of the impressions within the edition actually resembled the Chinese dictator at all.

Known for his fascination with fame, Warhol had begun using Mao imagery in his work after the Chinese dictator was referred to as the most famous person in the world in a Life magazine article from 1972. That same year, the artist began creating his Mao portraits, which were based on the leader’s official Chinese state portrait.

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