A similar story to the anecdote about Andy Warhol’s sudden inspiration for Campell’s Soup Cans is attributed to his inspiration for One Dollar Bills. Supposedly, Warhol was asked what he loved most in the world and his answer was “money.” Ironically enough, in order to come to this answer, he had to pay the woman who asked him this question $50. Despite Warhol’s answer simply being “money,” what he chose to reproduce was not stacks of money but a mere one-dollar bill-- nearly the smallest increment of money beating only actual cents.

Warhol did not grow up wealthy, and his first few art pieces were an attempt to make money while he was in college. His brother would sell produce out of the back of a truck and Warhol would sketch portraits of the customers for 25 cents. Money was intertwined with his artmaking from the beginning. Art would be given and money would be expected in return-- a transactional relationship. Once Warhol began to experience fame and success, his art was not only meaningful for the money it brought him. He was critiquing societies and changing the very meaning of art.

In One Dollar Bills (Backs), Warhol conflates the two sides of the transaction of artmaking. The money he would have received for a work of art is now the work of art. In doing so, the symbol of the one-dollar bill loses its functional value, just as Marcel Duchamp’s urinal was transformed into a “fountain.” This was not money Warhol could spend to buy something else but a statement that money could be mass-produced just as easily as his silk screen dollar bills could.