Andy Warhol created his controversial Hammer and Sickle (Special Edition) Complete Portfolio after a trip to Italy. During his visit, he noticed extensive hammer and sickle graffiti that symbolized the alliance of industrial and agricultural workers under communist rule. This imagery caught his attention, and he asked his assistant Ronnie Cutrone to find suitable objects that could serve as source material. Cutrone purchased a hammer and sickle and photographed them in multiple arrangements. Warhol then used these photographs as the foundation for the series. After that, he added bold color and shifting composition to create each print.
Origins of Warhol’s Hammer and Sickle (Special Edition) Portfolio
Rather than focusing on an American symbol such as the flag, Warhol turned toward the hammer and sickle at the height of the Cold War. He did not intend for the images to serve as explicit political commentary. Even so, he understood their charged associations. Subsequently, through repetition, abstraction, and heightened color, he converted an emblem of communist authority into a stylized object, one that hovered between threat and contemplation.
How the Special Edition Differs From the Regular Edition
The Special Edition pushes Warhol’s experiment further. Unlike the regular Hammer and Sickle suite, these seven prints (FS II.165–171) depict the tools with stripped-down outlines and muted, almost ghostly tones. As a result, the images verge on abstraction. Moreover, by simplifying the forms and reducing their recognizability, Warhol weakens their historical weight. Consequently, the hammer and sickle become distant—objects that feel unfamiliar, detached from ideology, and unexpectedly decorative.
Reframing a Political Symbol Through Pop Art
Warhol’s decision to isolate the tools and alter their visual intensity reframes the meaning of a historically loaded symbol. Moreover, his process highlights how repetition and stylization can drain an image of its power or, alternatively, grant it a new kind of resonance. Here, the once-feared emblem becomes part of a broader Pop Art investigation into how images circulate, accumulate significance, and ultimately change through reproduction.
Photo credit: Andy Warhol poses with Victor Hugo, who holds the original hammer and sickle used in the works. At the opening of his “Hammer & Sickle” show at the Castelli Gallery, New York, January 11, 1977. Photo by Allan Tannenbaum/Getty Images.
