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Lot Essay
In the late 1950s, Warhol was executing deadpan paintings of comic strips or printed advertisements from newspapers or magazines, which he enlarged on canvas, often with a minimum of artistic alteration (fig. 1). Certainly, such images derive from his previous experience as a commercial designer, but it is their transformation in his art of the early 1960s that generated the artist's signature style. Even these early examples of Warhol's transition from design work to fine art reiterate the monetary value of the objects depicted. These paintings often retain the suggested prices included in the advertisements that he was appropriating, details which certainly anticipated his celebrated exploitation of art as commodity.
With the pinnacle of Abstract Expressionism's popularity in the mid-1950s, debates were raging in the New York art world about the distinctions between "high" and "low" in both culture and art, divisions which the emerging generation of artists, most notably Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, were quickly dismantling. Rauschenberg's celebrated statement--"Painting relates to both art and life. Neither can be made. (I try to exist in that gap between the two)"--characterizes the increasing fusion between art and life that Warhol's work continued, and even came to exemplify (quoted in D.A. Miller, Sixteen Americans, exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1959, p. 59).
The silkscreened paintings for which the artist is best known had their beginnings in his work of the 1950s. His favored format became the grid, which derived from his previous experience in commercial design, and among his first subjects were objects that actually existed in mass-produced multiples, such as postage and trading stamps. Initially, his decision to repeat forms in grid formats led him to use stencils and rubber stamps, as seen in his paintings of S & H Green Stamps, for which he carved art-gum erasers and used them to imprint his chosen images onto the canvas. These Sperry & Hudson trading stamps, which Warhol's mother avidly accumulated and which Warhol used in several works, provide an appropriate precedent for his paintings of dollar bills, since the S & H stamps served as both collectible and currency: they were pasted into booklets and redeemed for merchandise.
On the subject of money, Warhol began to create large paintings of dollar bills in 1962. The genesis of this subject matter stems from a meeting Warhol had with Emile de Antonio, a personal friend, and Eleanor Ward, Director of the Stable Gallery. As Warhol later recalled:
"She took out her wallet and looked through the bill compartment. She then held up a two dollar bill and said, 'Andy, if you paint me this, I'll give you a show.'" She did, in the fall of 1962, after Warhol had produced a series of dollar bill paintings (quoted in C. Ratcliff, Andy Warhol, New York, 1983, p. 26).
Many of Warhol's early representations of dollar bills were pencil drawings, and these works on paper often include the artist's additions of watercolor (fig. 2). Drawings that Warhol executed showing bills of various denominations both tied with a rubber band and stuffed into a Campbell's soup can, demonstrate the artist's attention to commodities, which, from his Coca Cola bottles to his Hollywood starlets, seem to be chosen because they are characteristically American (fig. 3). The artist has made multiple statements explaining this aspect of his subject matter, and one in particular articulates his emphatic embrace of consumer culture and his conscious conflation of high and low imagery:
What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you can know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke . . ." (A. Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol From A to B and Back Again), New York, 1975, pp. 100-101).
It was at this time when Warhol discovered his previous method of imprinting multiples with a gum eraser was too tedious and difficult for such a detailed image. For the production of works like the present painting, he began to use the technique of silkscreening, for which he is now best known. In this example, Warhol complicates his usual grid pattern by alternating the front and back of the two dollar bill and by varying the colors between the two, decisions which would have required separate screens.
In his choice of common imagery, Warhol both follows the artistic lead of his Pop precedents, like Jasper Johns who claimed to produce "things the mind already knows" (quoted in "His Heart Belongs to Dada", Time, 4 May 1959, p. 58). But Warhol creates a novel technique, one which mimics the mass-production of commodity culture and, at the same time, undermines the technique's potential for seamless mimetic function. In this way, the artist undermines his own enigmatic claim that "[t]he reason I'm painting this way is that I want to be a machine, and feel that whatever I do and do machine-like is what I want to do" (quoted in G.R. Swenson, "What is Pop Art? Answers from 8 Painters, Part I", Artnews, vol. 62 (no. 7), November 1963, p. 26). Instead, Warhol complained half-heartedly: "I'm using silk-screens now. I think somebody should be able to do all my pictures for me. I haven't been able to make every image clear and simple and the same as the first one. I think it would be so great if more people took up silk-screens so that no one would know whether my picture was mine or somebody else's" (quoted in ibid., p. 26). Warhol's work constantly plays with boundaries, between high and low, popularity and anonymity, originality and repetition. While Warhol might not always equate fame and success in his cryptic comments that dismiss his own contributions to his works, Robert Rauschenberg reinforces the artist's unique approach and individual vision:
Andy had a kind of facility which I think drove him to develop and even invent ways to make his art so as not to be cursed by that talented hand. His works are more like monuments to his trying to free himself of his talent. Even his choice of subject matter is to get away from anything easy. Whether it's a chic decision or a disturbing decision about which object he picks, it's not an aesthetic choice. And there's strength in that (quoted in J. Stein, Edie, an American Biography, New York, 1982, p. 189).
According to Crone, there are two versions of 40 Two Dollar Bills The present work is a previously unrecorded version--an exciting discovery in terms of Warhol research. 40 Two Dollar Bills in Green (1962; Crone, no. 543) is now in the collection of the Museum Ludwig, Cologne.
(fig. 1) Andy Warhol, Réclame, 1960.
Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach.
© 2000 Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
(fig. 2) Andy Warhol, Untitled (Roll of Dollar Bills), 1962.
Private Collection.
© 2000 Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
(fig. 3) Andy Warhol, Campbell's Soup Can (Beef Consommé), 1962.
Private Collection.
(Sale, Christie's, New York, 20 November 1996).
(fig. 4) Andy Warhol, Coca Cola Bottles, 1962.
(Sale, Christie's, New York, 5 May 1992).
With the pinnacle of Abstract Expressionism's popularity in the mid-1950s, debates were raging in the New York art world about the distinctions between "high" and "low" in both culture and art, divisions which the emerging generation of artists, most notably Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, were quickly dismantling. Rauschenberg's celebrated statement--"Painting relates to both art and life. Neither can be made. (I try to exist in that gap between the two)"--characterizes the increasing fusion between art and life that Warhol's work continued, and even came to exemplify (quoted in D.A. Miller, Sixteen Americans, exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1959, p. 59).
The silkscreened paintings for which the artist is best known had their beginnings in his work of the 1950s. His favored format became the grid, which derived from his previous experience in commercial design, and among his first subjects were objects that actually existed in mass-produced multiples, such as postage and trading stamps. Initially, his decision to repeat forms in grid formats led him to use stencils and rubber stamps, as seen in his paintings of S & H Green Stamps, for which he carved art-gum erasers and used them to imprint his chosen images onto the canvas. These Sperry & Hudson trading stamps, which Warhol's mother avidly accumulated and which Warhol used in several works, provide an appropriate precedent for his paintings of dollar bills, since the S & H stamps served as both collectible and currency: they were pasted into booklets and redeemed for merchandise.
On the subject of money, Warhol began to create large paintings of dollar bills in 1962. The genesis of this subject matter stems from a meeting Warhol had with Emile de Antonio, a personal friend, and Eleanor Ward, Director of the Stable Gallery. As Warhol later recalled:
"She took out her wallet and looked through the bill compartment. She then held up a two dollar bill and said, 'Andy, if you paint me this, I'll give you a show.'" She did, in the fall of 1962, after Warhol had produced a series of dollar bill paintings (quoted in C. Ratcliff, Andy Warhol, New York, 1983, p. 26).
Many of Warhol's early representations of dollar bills were pencil drawings, and these works on paper often include the artist's additions of watercolor (fig. 2). Drawings that Warhol executed showing bills of various denominations both tied with a rubber band and stuffed into a Campbell's soup can, demonstrate the artist's attention to commodities, which, from his Coca Cola bottles to his Hollywood starlets, seem to be chosen because they are characteristically American (fig. 3). The artist has made multiple statements explaining this aspect of his subject matter, and one in particular articulates his emphatic embrace of consumer culture and his conscious conflation of high and low imagery:
What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you can know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke . . ." (A. Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol From A to B and Back Again), New York, 1975, pp. 100-101).
It was at this time when Warhol discovered his previous method of imprinting multiples with a gum eraser was too tedious and difficult for such a detailed image. For the production of works like the present painting, he began to use the technique of silkscreening, for which he is now best known. In this example, Warhol complicates his usual grid pattern by alternating the front and back of the two dollar bill and by varying the colors between the two, decisions which would have required separate screens.
In his choice of common imagery, Warhol both follows the artistic lead of his Pop precedents, like Jasper Johns who claimed to produce "things the mind already knows" (quoted in "His Heart Belongs to Dada", Time, 4 May 1959, p. 58). But Warhol creates a novel technique, one which mimics the mass-production of commodity culture and, at the same time, undermines the technique's potential for seamless mimetic function. In this way, the artist undermines his own enigmatic claim that "[t]he reason I'm painting this way is that I want to be a machine, and feel that whatever I do and do machine-like is what I want to do" (quoted in G.R. Swenson, "What is Pop Art? Answers from 8 Painters, Part I", Artnews, vol. 62 (no. 7), November 1963, p. 26). Instead, Warhol complained half-heartedly: "I'm using silk-screens now. I think somebody should be able to do all my pictures for me. I haven't been able to make every image clear and simple and the same as the first one. I think it would be so great if more people took up silk-screens so that no one would know whether my picture was mine or somebody else's" (quoted in ibid., p. 26). Warhol's work constantly plays with boundaries, between high and low, popularity and anonymity, originality and repetition. While Warhol might not always equate fame and success in his cryptic comments that dismiss his own contributions to his works, Robert Rauschenberg reinforces the artist's unique approach and individual vision:
Andy had a kind of facility which I think drove him to develop and even invent ways to make his art so as not to be cursed by that talented hand. His works are more like monuments to his trying to free himself of his talent. Even his choice of subject matter is to get away from anything easy. Whether it's a chic decision or a disturbing decision about which object he picks, it's not an aesthetic choice. And there's strength in that (quoted in J. Stein, Edie, an American Biography, New York, 1982, p. 189).
According to Crone, there are two versions of 40 Two Dollar Bills The present work is a previously unrecorded version--an exciting discovery in terms of Warhol research. 40 Two Dollar Bills in Green (1962; Crone, no. 543) is now in the collection of the Museum Ludwig, Cologne.
(fig. 1) Andy Warhol, Réclame, 1960.
Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach.
© 2000 Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
(fig. 2) Andy Warhol, Untitled (Roll of Dollar Bills), 1962.
Private Collection.
© 2000 Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
(fig. 3) Andy Warhol, Campbell's Soup Can (Beef Consommé), 1962.
Private Collection.
(Sale, Christie's, New York, 20 November 1996).
(fig. 4) Andy Warhol, Coca Cola Bottles, 1962.
(Sale, Christie's, New York, 5 May 1992).