Inspired by advertisements and mechanical production, Warhol famously worked in series. In an interview he said, "I'm for Mechanical art. When I took up silk screening it was to more fully exploit the preconceived image through the commercial techniques of multiple reproduction." (The artist quoted in I'll be Your Mirror: The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews, New York, 2004, p. 8-9) In its literal reference to commerce and in the manner of its fabrication, Dollar Sign reflects Warhol’s investment in the concept of industrial production.

The dollar sign works depart from the rest of Warhol’s oeuvre in that the source image at the center of the series is one created by the artist. Instead of transferring a preconceived photograph or advertising logo (as in his glitzy celebrity silkscreens or in his Campbell’s Soup can series), Warhol, a skilled draftsman, manipulates a universal symbol to create a unique, stylized icon of his own. This marks the dollar sign paintings with a special inventiveness that is a rarity within the larger scheme of Warhol’s celebrated body of work.

In Dollar Sign a shapely, italicized “S” reverberates against a blush pink canvas. A concordance of vibrant hues – hunter green, crimson red and ice blue – makes the symbol pop forward, surging with emblematic importance. Two layers of painted, cross-hatched color embellish the principle green form, pushing it to occupy three-dimensions. The spatial interplay of receding, cool blue and strong, vibrant red makes Dollar Sign a distinctly dynamic work. With this stylistic treatment, Warhol endows a ubiquitous symbol with stunningly monumental importance.

Warhol was fascinated by monetary value as it figured in art as well as in his daily life. In his journal, edited and published after his death by his secretary Pat Hackett, he regularly made note of the everyday costs he incurred. Written entries in his more than 20,000-page journal parenthetically include the prices of cab fares, lunches and other small purchases. It is no surprise that money, and the opportunities brought with it, held such a fascination for Warhol, who grew up in a working-class family in the suburbs of Pittsburg.

At a time where art and money were becoming exchanged with increasing fluidity and the value of his own work was sky-rocketing, Warhol makes the sign for currency at large the principal subject of his series. First appearing in 1962, Warhol explored the graphic nature of dollar bills, both as single images, as well as repeated screens sometimes in ordered fashion, and other times in a chaos of overlapping forms. Upon revisiting this iconic symbol, Warhol offers a type of personal retrospective to his earlier exploration, reimagining the once monochromatic screens in vibrant and extraordinary hues. In the present lot, he presents the dollar sign as at once blank, devoid of immediate value, but also filled with overwhelming potential. The myriad possibilities and promise of mobility presented by the abstract notion of cash make Dollar Sign a powerful beacon of hope.

Warhol’s works are the ultimate status symbol. He once said, "I like money on the wall…Say you were going to buy a 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." (A. Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again, New York, 1975, p. 134). His dollar sign paintings, in their brutally honest reference to cash, reveal that economic forces lurk beneath the surface of aesthetic objects. Furthermore, Warhol posits that “...making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.” (Ibid.) In Dollar Sign Warhol announces the often suppressed, yet close relationship between art and commercial value, and even ventures so far as to present the sign for money as a sign for art. The dollar sign series plays on this connection and reveals the universal power of both art and money to stimulate the imagination and evoke desire.

In 1982, the dollar sign series was celebrated in an exhibition arranged by Leo Castelli at his legendary Greene Street gallery. Today, the works constitute a conceptual and stylistic zenith within the larger context of the artist’s practice. With the series, of which Dollar Sign is a seminal example, Warhol bridges spheres of art and commerce, sparking an interrogation that has preoccupied contemporary artists to this day.