Lot #1231: ANDY WARHOL - Ones (Art Cash) - Color lithograph

 

Artist: Andy Warhol (American, 1928 - 1987).
Title: "Ones (Art Cash)".
Medium: Color lithograph.
Date: Composed 1971.
Dimensions: Overall size: 2 5/8 x 6 1/8 in. (67 x 156 mm). Image size: 2 3/8 x 5 11/16 in. (60 x 144 mm).
Lot Note(s): Signed in black marker, lower left. Edition of 500, few survive. Cream wove paper. Full margins. Fine impression. Fine condition, apparently unused. Literature/catalogue raisonne: Paul Marechal, “Andy Warhol Ephemera…Catalogue Raisonne, 1950-1987.” Lyon, France: Les amis du Musee de l’Imprimerie, 2018, Section 10, no.49. Comment(s): Rare; signed examples as ours exceedingly rare. No auction records located. On December 3, 1971, Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) held the "Art Cash Benefit for Television Programming" fundraising event for the benefit of the Community Television Center and the Artist's Television Project at Automation House, New York City. Robert Whitman, Robert Rauschenberg (who, along with Billy Kluver ((the Bell Laboratories technician/inventor/artist)) were co-founders of E.A.T.) and four other artists all designed currency for the event. Art Cash was then purchased with "real cash" by attendees and could be used to gamble at the casino style tables set up for the event, to purchase drinks, buy donated artwork, etc. There were bills in six different denominations: Warhol made the ones, the recto of which incorporates the Warhol rubberstamp "This Photograph May Not Be--Etc." with the recto black; Whitman a three-dollar bill; Rauschenberg $12; Tom Gormley $24; Red Grooms $51; and Marisol $88 (Oyvind Fahlstrom had submitted an image but it was considered too controversial and wasn't used). With the help of Theodore W. Kheel, Art Cash was printed by the American Banknote Company on the same paper used for U.S. currency (though these notes lack the tiny red and blue microfibers present in real bills as an anti-counterfeiting measure). An envelope containing one of each of the six bills was available during the benefit as was a poster showing both recto and verso of all six designs. The bills were never made available in quantity except on the night of the benefit and were to be collected and destroyed at the end of the evening, though patrons obviously decided to keep some as souvenirs. Image copyright © Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. [28121-1-600]