Beschreibung:

Andy Warhol Hammer and Sickle 1976 Acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas. 72 x 86 1/4 in. (182.9 x 219.1 cm). Signed and dated "Andy Warhol 76" on the overlap. Stamped with the Estate and Foundation seals and numbered "PA25.003" on the overlap.
Provenance Galerie Daniel Templon, Paris Exhibited Paris, Galerie Daniel Templon, Andy Warhol Hammer and Sickle, May 31 - July 9, 1977; Salzburg, Galerie Thaddeus Ropac, Andy Warhol Arbeiten/Works 1962 - 1986, August, 1987; Zurich, Thomas Ammann Fine Art, Andy Warhol - Hammer and Sickle, 1999; Basel, Fondation Beyeler, Andy Warhol Series and Singles, September 17 - December 31, 2001; New York, Gagosian Gallery, Cast a Cold Eye: The Late Works of Andy Warhol October 25 - December 22, 2006 Literature Galerie Thaddeus Ropac, Andy Warhol Arbeiten/Works, Salzburg 1987, no. 21 (illustrated); Thomas Ammann Fine Art, Andy Warhol Hammer and Sickle, Zurich 1999, no. 6 (illustrated); Gagosian Gallery, Cast a Cold Eye: The Late Works of Andy Warhol New York 2006, no. 99 (illustrated) Catalogue Essay With his iconic imagery of the Hammer and Sickle, Andy Warhol “reduced one of the most feared symbols on the planet to a simple still life,” creating a work which turned the imposing symbol of the Soviet Union into an aesthetic triumph and powerful pop masterpiece. Painted in 1976, the Hammer and Sickle paintings were made during the height of the Cold War. As the two antagonistic superpowers wrangled for political influence around the globe, capitalism and communism went head-to-head, with the United States engaged in a policy of containment to prevent communism from spreading beyond the Soviet Union and China. Within this climate of conflict and near-crisis, Warhol intuitively honed in on the two most visible images of communism, the portrait of Chinese leader Mao Tse Tung and the hammer and sickle of the Soviet flag, and turned them into something completely his own. “The sheer repetition of the Mao image in Red China and the hammer and sickles in the Soviet Union made it easy for Warhol to appropriate them into his already repetitive style.” (Ronnie Cutrone Warhol’s assistant, Hammer and Sickle exhibition catalogue, Haunch of Venison, London, 2002) Hammer and Sickle is a uniquely significant example of Warhol’s particular talent for obsessively reusing an image so that it is completely transformed through repetition. In his painting, the tools both point downwards, in direct opposition to the upward facing hammer and sickle of the Soviet flag. Warhol has literally upended the symbols, removing them from their initial political context. He has then further decontextualized the best-known symbol of the “enemy” in the Cold War through his additional series of removals, from political symbols to graffiti to props which are photographed and then recycled into a two dimensional form on the canvas. Through these steps the symbols lose their initial meaning, yet Warhol’s genius lies in his ability to invest them with an entirely new significance as a branded image, not unlike a Coca-Cola: immediately recognizable as a pop-cultural touchstone. In giving the hammer and sickle a commodified identity and offering it for sale in a commercial art gallery, Warhol exposes the inherent links between political propaganda and product placement, dissolving the distance between communism and capitalism. He has exposed the man behind the curtain, revealed the mechanics of propaganda, and fused aesthetics and history into a painting that epitomizes exactly why Warhol remains an unrivaled master of nonchalant irony and American painting. The hammer and the sickle were emblems on the flag of the Soviet Union from 1923 until its collapse, and still feature on the flag of the communist party of China. The two tools, entwined together, symbolize harmony between industrial and agricultural workers. Warhol became interested in the tools as a graphic construct after a trip to Italy in 1975 where the hammer and sickle were prominently featured as common graffiti throughout the country. The repetition and powerful simplicity of the image resonated with the “Pope of Pop.” Upon his return to the U.S., Warhol had his assistant hunt down images of the hammer and sickle