Lot #1538: ANDY WARHOL - Dollar Signs - $$$ - Black marker drawings on green rip-stop nylon laundry bag

 

Artist: Andy Warhol (American, 1928 - 1987).
Title: "Dollar Signs - $$$ [black marker drawings on laundry bag]".
Medium: Black marker drawings on green rip-stop nylon laundry bag.
Date: Composed c1980.
Dimensions: Overall size: 44 x 27 in. (1118 x 686 mm).
Pricing:
  Starting Price: $24,000
  Reserve Price: N.A.
  Auction Sale Price Estimate: $35,000/40,000
Lot Note(s): Signed by Warhol and dedicated "To Rupert [Jasen Smith]". Unique. Fine condition with no issues. Literature/catalogue raisonne: See Feldman/Schellmann IIIC.49 for examples of screenprints on laundry bags. Provenance: Gifted by Andy Warhol to Rupert Jasen Smith; acquired directly from Smith by Bengtsson Fine Art, Landskrona, Sweden; thence to private collection, Paradise Valley, Arizona; thence to our consignor. Rupert Jasen Smith was Warhol's primary offsite printer from 1977 until 1987, responsible for printing thousands of Warhol's paintings and prints, including all of the screenprints on laundry bags.
Comment(s): A unique and very rare item. Our example is one of only three known drawings of a dollar sign that Warhol executed on a laundry bag. 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 was probably left over from one of these printing sessions, at which time Warhol drew the images and signed and dedicated it. Borje Bengtsson recalls seeing a few of the silkscreened bags in Smith’s studio in 1987, after Warhol’s death, at which time Smith gave the bag (our example) to Bengtsson. Image copyright © Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. [29274-19-24000-NA]