Richard Hamilton trained at the Royal Academy and the Slade School of Fine Art. In the mid-1950s he became interested in popular culture and began to adapt elements from advertising and the media in his paintings and prints. The idea for this painting came from an article on male fashion in Playboy magazine. Hamilton includes images derived from television transmissions of early astronauts, and CCCP (the Cyrillic letters for Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) which refers to a recent Soviet space orbit. The face of President Kennedy dominates the composition.