Andy Warhol

Gift from the artist to the present owner in June 1984

Throughout his career, Andy Warhol has demonstrated an astounding ability to present unabashedly the true symbols and demi-gods of modern American society: celebrity icons, mass consumer products, money. A product of his early career in advertising, Warhol experienced first hand the shift towards a total consumer culture and the growing materialistic nature of the American public. By the 1980s, with the bullish market and the undeniable fascination with accumulating wealth, money had become one of the most powerful and sexy objects imaginable. By far the most ostentatious and flagrantly capitalistic of all Warhol's explorations into the theme of money, his treatment of the dollar sign provides the ultimate expression of a lifetime infatuation with consumerism.

Dollar Sign reflects the complete marriage of art and money. Moving away from his earlier depictions of dollar bills, Warhol's Dollar Sign series isolate the $, concentrating on the iconic symbol of money – connoting sex, power and status in the most banal of fashions.   The vibrant dollar sign pops off the canvas and commands attention and perfectly captures the brazen euphoria synonymous with the 1980s. Dollar Sign is a highly provocative image, quintessentially Warholian: reflecting his personality, shrewd powers of social oberservation and uncanny ability to stay on the forefront of culture and anticipate the next big thing.

Dedicated to David Whitney and Philip Johnson and placed in the living room of Whitney's Big Sur home, Dollar Sign is a powerfully iconic symbol, seemingly brazen in its simplicity and capturing so succinctly Warhol's love affair with wealth.  Warhol commented, "I like money on the wall.  Say you were going to buy a $200,000 painting.  I think you should take that money, tie it up, and hang it on the wall.  Then, when someone visited you, the first thing they would see is the money on the wall." (David Bourden, Warhol, New York, 1989, p. 384)  Warhol's Dollar Sign series perfectly embodies his satirical commentary on American materlialism - quite literally hanging money on the wall.

Went to Castellano's for dinner (cab $6) with David Whitney, but without Philip who was off having dinner with some swells.  And David reminds me that he wants us to get married, and now that I hear how many Jasper Johns he has, it would really be worth it.

- Andy Warhol