Hammer & Sickle

Andy Warhol Hammer & Sickle is a range of artworks created by artist Andy Warhol.

The idea for the Hammer and Sickle paintings originated from a trip to Italy that Andy Warhol took for the opening of his Ladies and Gentlemen paintings (aka the Drag Queen series).
Left wing Italian journalists embraced the Ladies and Gentlemen series, “writing that Andy Warhol had exposed the cruel racism inherent in the American capitalist system, which left poor black and Hispanic boys no choice but to prostitute themselves as transvestites.”
At the press conference for the Drag Queen paintings, a reporter asked Warhol if he was a Communist. Andy asked Bob Colacello who was also at the press conference if he [Warhol] was a Communist and Bob Colacello answered, “you just painted Willy Brandt’s portrait, but you’re trying to get Imelda Marcos.”
Later at the hotel, Andy said to Bob, “Maybe I should do real Communist paintings next. They would sell a lot in Italy.”
According to Andy Warhol’s painting assistant, Ronnie Cutrone, the idea for the Hammer and Sickle came from the graffiti that Andy noticed during his trip to Italy. Cutrone searched communist bookstores in New York for an image they could use, but none of the symbols were appropriate – too “flat, stenciled”. So Ronnie went down to Canal Street and bought an actual hammer and sickle and photographed them with side lighting to cast a shadow. Like Andy Warhol’s Skull series, the Hammer and Sickle paintings had sponge-mopped backgrounds.
Halston’s boyfriend, Victor Hugo, was given the original hammer and sickle, which he had Andy sign, and placed them crisscross under a Plexiglas box.

When Andy Warhol first burst onto the artistic stage in the 1960s’, he did so by incorporating images that were firmly embedded in the American psyche. His bright and colorful paintings and serigraphs presented images that were commonplace — a soup can or coke bottle — but were transformed by his technique into artistic icons of popular culture. Warhol was most interested in image and not reality, although one could say that by casting these mass produced commercial images in his own unique style, Warhol was making a comment on the reality of living in a world that was dominated by images from the advertising and entertainment industries. Warhol’s prints are in essence images of images. They are at least once removed, and often several times removed, from reality. His famous prints of Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Kennedy, not to mention countless other celebrities, are based on photographs. As in the case with Marilyn Monroe, many of those photographs are of his subjects posing as a character, not as themselves, a subtle reminder that once someone achieves a certain celebrity status, they become further and further removed from their real selves. How many layers must one remove to finally see the real person depicted in a Warhol print?