ANDY WARHOL | Hammer and Sickle

signed, dated 1977 and dedicated to Bob Happy Birthday May 8, 1978 on the overlap

Bob Colacello, New York (gift of the artist)
Phillips de Pury & Company, New York, May 13, 2005, lot 370
Private Collection
Phillips, London, February 14, 2013, lot 11
Acquired by the present owner from the above sale

New York, Leo Castelli Gallery, Still Lifes, 1977

Neil Printz and Sally King-Nero, eds., The Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonne: Paintings 1976-1978, Vol. 05A, no. 3591, p. 144, illustrated in color, and p. 153

Compared to the 1960s, the 1970s were a relatively quiet decade in Warhol’s career in which he made fewer paintings than before. Amongst the most famous works from this time were his portraits of chairman Mao, whom he immortalized in his 1972-73 series of large-scale paintings. In addition to the communist leader, Warhol also worked on a body of work that depicts the most potent symbol of the political movement: the hammer and sickle. Painted in 1977, Hammer and Sickle can arguably be considered a counterpart to the Dollar Sign paintings, each capturing the potent symbol of economic ideologies on the opposite side of the spectrum.