Claire Salvo’s Picasso reimagines the U.S. dollar as a miniature canvas for one of the most powerful anti-war statements in art history. Painted in acrylic directly onto the bill, Salvo meticulously recreates Pablo Picasso’s Guernica - his 1937 masterpiece depicting the horrors of the Spanish Civil War - within the confines of American currency.

By placing Guernica behind George Washington’s portrait, Salvo creates a striking visual and conceptual juxtaposition: the founding symbol of American democracy set against one of modern art’s most enduring indictments of violence and oppression. The tension between image and medium underscores themes of power, politics, and human cost - drawing a line between the historical, the economic, and the moral.

Rendered in a restrained grayscale palette, Picasso embodies both reverence and critique. It is at once homage and commentary - a reminder that even the smallest surfaces can hold immense weight, and that art, like money, reflects the systems that shape our collective conscience.