Ten Dollar Bill (Ten Dollars), 1956

Ten Dollar Bill was included in Colby College’s Roy Lichtenstein: History in the Making 1941 - 1960 in the ‘Glimmers of Pop’ section, and the wall label provided some insightful background: “Reflecting on this work, Lichtenstein wryly commented, “The idea of counterfeiting money always occurs to you when you do lithography.” His representation of the ten-dollar bill features a bird-like Alexander Hamilton that distantly echoes John Trumbull’s 1805 portrait of the American statesman, the source for the image on the current ten-dollar bill that was introduced into circulation in 1928. Another reference is the hyper-realistic or “trompe l'oeil paintings” paintings of currency popular during the nineteenth century.”