Andy Warhol — Hammer and Sickle (Special Edition) For Sale

Andy Warhol: Hammer and Sickle (Special Edition)

Series Performance & Market Position

The Hammer and Sickle Special Edition portfolio represents one of Warhol's most politically charged and increasingly sought-after series, with auction performance demonstrating remarkable appreciation over the past decade. The complete set achieved $8,112,500 at auction in November 2016, establishing the series as a seven-figure category for complete sets. This appreciation underscores the series' investment credentials among Warhol's politically themed works.

Warhol's broader market continues to set benchmarks for post-war collecting. Shot Sage Blue Marilyn commanded $195,040,000 at Christie's in May 2022, establishing the highest price ever achieved for a 20th-century artwork at auction. Mao prints each realized $4,648,000 at Christie's in May 2025, while Flowers achieved $4,076,000 and $3,832,000 at Sotheby's that same month. These results confirm sustained institutional and private appetite for Warhol's iconic print editions.

Technical & Historical Context

Created in 1977 and published by Andy Warhol, New York, the Hammer and Sickle Special Edition comprises seven screen prints on Strathmore Bristol Paper, each measuring 32 x 40 inches. The portfolio emerged from Warhol's fascination with communist iconography, which he encountered during European travels where the hammer and sickle symbol appeared as omnipresent political graffiti.

Rather than appropriating existing imagery, Warhol commissioned his assistant Ronnie Cutrone to purchase actual tools from a Manhattan hardware store, which were then arranged and photographed in the Factory. This process—transforming mundane American consumer goods into Soviet symbolism—embodies Warhol's characteristic subversion of political meaning through commercial technique.

The series arrived during the Cold War's later decades, when détente had made communist imagery simultaneously familiar and contested. Warhol stripped the symbol of propaganda value, rendering it as pure aesthetic object through his signature flattening of subject matter and application of commercial printing methods.

While the complete portfolio commands premium positioning, individual impressions attract collectors seeking specific colorways or compositions within this thematic grouping.

Certain impressions have demonstrated the strongest individual auction performance, each reaching the HKD 98,537,500 threshold in April 2017. These works feature bold chromatic contrasts that translate effectively within contemporary interiors while maintaining the confrontational political charge collectors prize.

Other impressions offer varied palette interpretations of the central motif, with certain impressions emphasizing industrial grays and blacks while others incorporate Warhol's characteristic high-saturation color fields. From our experience placing these works, collectors focused on Warhol's political commentary tend toward the more austere colorways, while those building broader pop holdings often favor the vibrant variations that dialogue with Flowers or Marilyn acquisitions.

The complete set remains the definitive acquisition for collectors establishing comprehensive Warhol print holdings. Institutional buyers and foundations particularly favour complete sets, viewing them as exhibition-ready groupings that communicate Warhol's serial methodology intact.

Authentication & Condition Considerations

Each impression from the Hammer and Sickle Special Edition should bear Andy Warhol's pencil signature and numbering on the verso or recto, consistent with the artist's authentication practices for major print editions from this period. Collectors should verify provenance through the Andy Warhol Foundation's authentication board records where available, supplemented by exhibition history and published catalogue documentation.

Strathmore Bristol Paper, while archival quality, requires specific environmental conditions for long-term preservation. Works should be examined for tonal shifts in uninked areas, edge handling, and any restoration to surface abrasions—common concerns with works from the 1970s that may have experienced varied storage conditions across multiple owners.

Guy Hepner conducts thorough condition assessment on every Warhol work we offer, documenting any conservation history and providing detailed photography under raking light to reveal surface condition. Our New York team works exclusively with conservators experienced in Warhol's print techniques to ensure acquisitions meet museum-standard preservation requirements.

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Acquire Hammer and Sickle Special Edition Works

Guy Hepner maintains current availability across the Hammer and Sickle portfolio, including individual impressions and complete sets. Contact our New York advisory team for pricing, condition reports, and acquisition guidance tailored to your collection objectives.

Warhol's Broader Practice

This series belongs to the vast and varied body of print and painted work Warhol produced across five decades, during which he moved fluidly between celebrity portraiture, consumer product imagery, historical appropriation, and personal or commissioned subject matter — all filtered through the same signature screenprint process that flattened the distinction between mechanical reproduction and fine art. Warhol's insistence on treating commercial printing techniques as a primary artistic medium, rather than a secondary reproductive tool, remains one of the most influential positions in postwar American art.

Warhol's work is held in the permanent collections of major museums worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Tate Modern, and the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, which maintains the most complete public archive of his output across all periods and subjects.