Populist Art

In 1972, Andy Warhol added a series of paintings of Chairman Mao to his ever growing gallery of icons, and his irreverent blend of mythology and mass marketing caught a big political shift. (President Nixon made his historic visit to China earlier that year.) Fourteen years later, in his final series before his death, Warhol pulled another figurehead of Communism—Vladimir Lenin—into what had become a fully fleshed-out Pop ideology. Yet again, Warhol proved his acuity and sense of culture: glasnost and perestroika were in their nascent stages, and Soviet Russia’s demise was imminent. Next month, Phillips, in London, will auction nine of Warhol’s Lenin images, including works on canvas and paper as well as collages from the archive of Galerie Klüser, with prices expected to start at $103,000. Ahead of the sale, “Andy Warhol’s Lenin” is on view to the public through October 4. (phillips.com)