Andy Warhol has managed a feat of inflation that would shock even the Venezuelan government: raising the value of a single dollar to $28 million.
This evening, Sotheby’s will auction Warhol’s “One Dollar Bill (Silver Certificate)," a 1962 piece that signaled an important turning point in the artist’s career -- and whose sale, a half century later, is a giant metaphor for the financial state of contemporary art.
“One Dollar Bill (Silver Certificate)” was actually the precursor for an extensive series that reproduced and warped the almighty dollar. Several of these pieces are up for auction at the high price points listed below. Warhol had previously included monetary images in his work, such as in a 1954 Dance Magazine spread that featured a sack with gold coin, but currency had never been one of his work’s exclusive subjects.
"Dollar Signs" est. $7-10 million
Sotheby’s will auction a number of works in the series, but “One Dollar Bill (Silver Certificate)” stands out for several reasons. As the originator of the "Dollar Bills" sequence, it was the only one painted entirely by hand. Warhol had, at this time, begun to play with his silkscreen reproduction technique, which would be employed with later works like “Front and Back Dollar Bills,” also on sale. Stylistically, the single bill and its close-crop, warped look would develop into works like his iconic Marilyn Monroe series.
"Front and Back Dollar Bills" est. $20-28 million
What are bidders to make of the works -- which visually inflate the very currency they seek to exchange? “I like money on my wall,” Warhol once said, referring both to the artworks actually portraying money and the fact that his art was fetching increasingly high prices.
Was he speaking ironically? Does this "Dollar Bills" series fully embrace American capitalism, or did the Pop Artist intend a critique? As usual with Warhol, it’s hard to tell. After all, this is the man who said, “Making money is art. And working is art. And good business is the best art.”
"Dollar Bills" est. $190-280k
In either case, the “Dollar Bills” sales have arrived at a symbolic moment in the high-end art world, one in which elites bid higher and higher for works of modern and contemporary art. Just last month Pablo Picasso’s “Les Femmes d’Alger” broke the art auction record with a $179.4 million bid, while Alberto Giacometti’s “L’Homme au doigt” sculpture reached a price-point of $141.3 million -- at the same Christie's sale.
Warhol’s unabashed acceptance of the connection between money and art could be read as either validation or critique -- but there's no doubt it was prophecy.
"One Dollar Bill (Silver Certificate)" est. $20-28 million
All images courtesy of Sotheby's.
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