The Adventures of Mao on the Long March 1971

Roy Lichtenstein made this print, The Adventures of Mao on the Long March, using flat areas of color and machine-like Ben-Day dots. I wonder what it must have been like, applying each of those tiny dots so precisely! The brown-red blobs surrounding Mao’s head make me think of speech bubbles in a comic book. The man’s face is so smooth it looks like plastic. What was Lichtenstein thinking when he made this image? Was he commenting on Mao as a pop culture icon? Or on the way we consume images of political leaders? Lichtenstein’s work has been so important to so many artists, including me. He was a master of appropriation, and his paintings and prints always have a certain coolness. The way he borrows and reinterprets existing images—it’s like he’s having a conversation with the whole history of art!