Dollar Sign by Andy Warhol

Artwork Information
Signed, Unnumbered
Single $ (Orange) Size 90 x 70 Inches
Single $ (Red) Size 10 x 8 Inches
Single $ (Purple) Size 20 x 16 Inches
Single Dollar Sign F.S. II 278 (Green) Size 19×15 Inches
Single $ (Yellow) Size 19×15 Inches
White Nine Dollar Signs Size 40×32 Inches
Dollar Sign 284 (Quad) Size 40 x 32 Inches
Dollar Sign 9 (Red) Size 40 x 32 Inches
Dollar Sign 9 (Blue) Size 40 x 32 Inches
Dollar Sign (4) Size 40×32 Inches

Description

The subject of ‘Dollar Bills’ had provided the motif for Warhol’s breakthrough series of 1961, which in turn had prompted his revolutionary exploration of the silkscreen process for creating his paintings. Twenty years on Warhol revisited the subject of money, this time focussing on the elegant curvilinear form of the dollar sign itself. Unlike the monochromatic and static 1961 ‘Dollar Bill’ paintings, Warhol’s 1981 ‘Dollar Signs’ pulsated with vibrant hues, layered energy, as if celebrating the artist’s mastery over his adopted medium. Based on one of Warhol’s own drawings, the stylized $ motif here seems to reverberate in crimson red, pink, and gold against a baby-blue background. In his seminal 1989 publication on the artist, David Bourdon reflects, “Warhol’s Dollar Signs are brazen, perhaps even insolent reminders that pictures by brand-name artists are metaphors for money, a situation that never bothered him”.

with its striking colours and rhythmic repetition of the single $ motif, Dollar Sign epitomises Andy Warhol’s singular artistic vision, one that would surprise and captivate in the 1980s and has continued to do so more than three decades later.