Lot #1501: ANDY WARHOL - $ - Dollar Sign - Black marker drawing on green rip-stop nylon laundry bag

       

Artist: Andy Warhol (American, 1928 - 1987).
Title: "$ - Dollar Sign [black marker drawing on laundry bag]".
Medium: Black marker drawing on green rip-stop nylon laundry bag.
Date: Composed 1982.
Dimensions: Overall size: 44 x 27 in. (1118 x 686 mm).
Pricing:
  Starting Price: $40,000
  Reserve Price: N.A.
  Auction Sale Price Estimate: $50,000/60,000
Lot Note(s): Signed by Warhol twice, dated, and dedicated to "Liz". Unique. Fine condition with no issues. Literature/catalogue raisonne: See Feldman/Schellmann IIIC.49 (pg. 304) for examples of screenprints on laundry bags. Provenance: Bengtsson Fine Art, Landskrona, Sweden; thence private collection, Paradise Valley, Arizona; thence to our consignor.
Comment(s): A unique, classic, and very rare item. Our example is one of only three known original drawings that Warhol executed on a laundry bag, all of the other rare bags bearing silkscreened images. The silkscreened bags themselves have fetched as much as $193,000 at auction in the past few years. Beginning in the late 1970s, Warhol and his master printer Rupert Jasen Smith worked together to produce a very small number of silkscreens on green laundry bags. The screenprinted images included those of ‘Joseph Beuys’ and Warhol’s celebrated ‘Cow.’ Our particular example (unused before the drawing) was probably left over from one of these printing sessions, at which time Warhol drew the image and signed it twice, as well as dedicating and dating it. Warhol’s dollar signs are among his “signature” images. Image copyright © Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. [29391-7-40000-NA]