T he serpentine flash of a dollar sign, in Andy Warhol’s black and gold canvas, opens this fascinating show. Brusque, abrupt; splashes of paint scattering around it like cartoon speed marks – the motif seems to drive towards the future. That it is priceless today, and now looks so very evidently handmade, probably goes against the spirit in which it was churned out of Warhol’s Factory back in 1981.
It represents what it shows, but by now exponentially – the most recognisable symbol of wealth in the world. Dollar Sign is an ideal start to an exhibition that explores money through art. Depictions of money are legion, and there are plenty on display: Rembrandt’s etching of The Goldweigher with his fatly bagged coins; James Gillray’s caricature of Pitt the Younger with a stomach full of sovereigns, belching paper money from his mouth; a sharp 1933 painting by the overlooked English artist Charles Spencelayh.
An old man holds a 10 shilling note up to the light only to discover it has no watermark. It’s the standard Great Depression fraud. His eyes are already dim with dismay.
But this show goes deeper into the evergreen relationship between art and money. For money, after all, is in itself both an image and an object. It might be an ancient scrap of paper inscribed with fluid Arabic calligraphy or a Roman coin bearing an emperor’s tough profile (startling drawings by Rubens, based on coins he acquired on Italian trips, would be transformed by the Flemish master int.