An Andy Warhol’s portrait of Chairman Mao has sold in Hong Kong.
An Andy Warhol portrait of Chairman Mao has been sold at a historic auction for $12.6 million in Hong Kong. An unnamed Asian collector bought the iconic silkscreen portrait in the sale at Sotheby’s on April 2.
In the past, Chinese officials had stopped versions of the painting being exhibited on the mainland, where censors closely guard Mao’s depiction.
Warhol began his series of silk-screen portraits of Mao in 1972, when ties between then-Cold War foes China and the United States began to thaw after the historic trip to Beijing by former U.S. President Richard Nixon.