Andy Warhol Indian Head Nickel, 1986 screenprint, depicts one side of the five-cent piece designed by James Earle Fraser distributed between 1913 and 1938. The side of the coin shown portrays the profile of a Native American man. The coin is comprised of various gray tones. Details that would have been embossed on the original coin, such as the man’s facial features and the word “LIBERTY,” are outlined with white, raising them to the forefront of the image.

The coin’s image of a man is not of a specific person, but is instead meant to be a composite of multiple Native people. As part of the Cowboys and Indians series, Andy Warhol’s Indian Head Nickel questions the appropriation of Native American images and the ways in which they are propagated. By placing this generic image in a series that also features images of specific Native individuals, such as Sitting Bull and Geronimo, Andy Warhol’s Indian Head Nickel highlights the tensions between individualized Native American identity and perceptions of a generalized Native American identity in American culture.

Created in 1986, Andy Warhol Indian Head Nickel screenprint on Lenox Museum Board is hand signed in the lower left corner in pencil. It is a unique work of an edition of 250, published by Gaultney, Klineman Art Inc., New York and printed by Rupert Jason Smith, New York.

Andy Warhol Cowboys and Indians Series:

Andy Warhol’s Cowboys and Indians series of 1986 consists of ten prints each depicting their own respective subject—John Wayne, Annie Oakley, Kachina Dolls, Geronimo, Buffalo Nickel, Tonto, Theodore Roosevelt, General George Custer, Plains Indian Shield, and Northwest Coast Mask. Featuring images of famous American Western icons, Warhol’s series explores the relationship between Native Americans and Hollywood's portrayal of them in Western films. Warhol, being fascinated with celebrity culture, uses these famous figures to examine ways in which fame and popular culture intersect with history and myth.

The Cowboys and Indians series was also created during a time at which Warhol was exploring his own Native American heritage. His mother was of Ruthenian and Carpatho-Rusyn descent, but Warhol claimed that his father was of Slovakian and Native American ancestry.

Overall, the Cowboys and Indians series reflects Warhol's interest in American culture and history, as well as his fascination with celebrity and the intersection of art and commerce.

This screenprint is part of a portfolio of works Warhol created in 1986 titled Cowboys and Indians. Other works in the Cowboys and Indians Series include General Custer, Sitting Bull, Kachina Dolls, Geronimo, Annie Oakley, War Bonnet Indian, Buffalo Nickel, Action Picture, Northwest Coast Mask, Plains Indians Shield, Mother and Child, Indian Head Nickel, and Teddy Roosevelt.

Catalogue Raisonné & COA:
Andy Warhol Indian Head Nickel, from the Cowboys and Indians Series, 1986 is fully documented and referenced in the below catalogue raisonnés and texts (copies will be enclosed as added documentation with the invoices that will accompany the sale of the work).

1. Feldman, Frayda and Jörg Schellmann. Andy Warhol Prints: A Catalogue Raisonné 1962 – 1987, 4^th Ed. New York: Distributed Art Publishers, Inc., 2003. Listed and illustrated as catalogue raisonné no. IIB.385.
2. A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany this artwork.

About the Framing:
Andy Warhol Indian Head Nickel is framed to museum-grade, conservation standards, artist name title, year is presented in a complementary moulding and finished with silk-wrapped mats and optical grade Plexiglas.