S&H green stamps 1965

S&H green stamps 1962 is among Warhol’s earliest published print editions. The work depicts the trading stamps produced by the Sperry and Hutchinson department store that were also the subject of paintings by Warhol. During the Great Depression, S&H (Sperry and Hutchinson) trading stamps were distributed by retail stores to their shoppers who then pasted them into small ‘savings’ books that could be redeemed for various products. The paintings based on the image were produced using rubber stamps (with the S&H design carved into a rubber block). This elementary form of making paintings by using a repeated stamped image, with irregularities and variations in the image, anticipated his use of silk screen techniques to create serial paintings. The process was also used for works on paper and underlines Warhol’s formal interest in seriality and repetition — so much a part of consumer culture since the 1950s.