Muhammad Ali, shirtless in white satin boxing shorts and pierced with six arrows, poses as St. Sebastian, a martyr to his faith. The April 1968 Esquire magazine cover was one of the most iconic images of the decade, tying together the incendiary issues of the Vietnam War, race and religion.

George Lois created 92 of the covers for Esquire between 1962 and 1972.

Now his work is showcased in an exhibit, “George Lois: The Esquire Covers”…at the Museum of Modern Art. The show features 32 of the most remembered and memorable of the 92 covers Lois created for Esquire from 1962 to 1972.

The covers include the famous image of Andy Warhol drowning in his own Campbell’s Soup can on the May 1969 issue and the November 1967 issue that depicts a sweetly smiling Svetlana Stalin with a drawn-on mustache, looking very much like her dictator father. Then there’s heavyweight champ Sonny Liston in a Santa hat in December 1963, the height of the civil rights movement.

I wonder if they would be as popular, nowadays – a time when “courageous” means “divisive” to some; when “dissident” means you probably can’t even get on an airplane.