  Reference URL  Hamburger 1985 - 1986   • Artist Rooms During
the mid 1980s Warhol returned to the newspaper adverts that had
informed his paintings of the early 1960s. He created a group of
works called ‘Ad’s and Illustrations’ that differed from his
photographic screenprints and highly stylised images of
celebrities. They are mostly black and white and were created by
tracing the original adverts by hand, which creates a looser,
graphic quality. During the 1980s the U.S.A. was still in the
depths of the Cold War. Within this context three themes emerge
in these paintings: war, death and religion. This diptych,
featuring the iconic American hamburger, is reminiscent of
Warhol’s earlier screenprints of American popular culture. Yet
it also resembles both a mushroom cloud (associated with nuclear
explosions) and a glowing halo.  Glossary Open  Cold War  The
Cold War was an era of intense rivalry, tension and conflict
(short of a full-scale war) between the United States of America
and the Soviet Union (U.S.S.