Dollar Sign

Composed of one or more stylized dollar signs, the works in Andy Warhol’s brightly-colored 1981 “Dollar Sign” series embody the artist’s philosophy on the relationship between art and commerce. Made using several silkscreens for a bold and textured look, Warhol’s “Dollar Signs” appear as if they were lifted from a sketchpad or scrawled across a receipt. Separated from currency and expanded to cartoonishly large proportions, the series equates art with money. Warhol’s work was often seen as both a barometer and a criticism of American culture—in much the same way that Warhol’s “Coca-Cola,” “Brillo Box,” and “Campbell’s Soup Cans” series criticized American consumerism in the 1960s, “Dollar Sign” reflects the growing American obsession with wealth and status in the 1980s.