Carved cash – wood you believe it?

It’s the sort of stuff you’d imagine finding if you were clearing out the loft of a recently deceased, and absent minded, bank robber.

But what looks like a stack of bundled cash is in fact a wooden sculpture.

Carved cash

Each has been carved by New York artist Randall Rosenthal using a block of Vermont white pine – and skilfully applied acrylic paint.

‘I just create from my mind, without photographs or objects as a guide,’ said the 61-year-old.

‘There is no attempt to hide the fact my work is wooden. Many shapes and thicknesses are subtly exaggerated.’

Randall Rosenthal

Mr Rosenthal began making sculptures after seeing an open book carved as a Bible rest in a church.

‘I was so intrigued that I began carving open books. Then I started painting the pages and it all spiralled from there,’ he said.

His pieces are displayed in the Louis K Meisel and Bernarducci-Meisel galleries in New York City.

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