Leo Martínez
Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans, sometimes referred to as 32 Campbell's Soup Cans, is a series of 32 canvases, each consisting of a painting of a Campbell's Soup can, one of each variety the company offered. The paintings were produced between November 1961 and June 1962 and exhibited in July 1962 at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. The series marked Warhol's debut as a real artist and launched his career, turning him into a household name.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Name of the painting | Campbell's Soup Cans (sometimes referred to as 32 Campbell's Soup Cans) |
| Artist | Andy Warhol |
| Year | 1962 |
| Medium | Acrylic with metallic enamel paint on canvas |
| Number of canvases | 32 |
| Dimensions | 20 inches (51 cm) in height x 16 inches (41 cm) in width |
| Subject | Campbell's Soup cans, one of each variety offered by the company at the time |
| Style | Pop art |
| Exhibition history | Shown at the Ferus Gallery of Los Angeles, California, in 1962; currently at the Museum of Modern Art in New York |
| Inspiration | Warhol's fascination with consumerism and everyday objects; his own consumption of Campbell's Soup for lunch every day for decades |
| Technique | Hand-painted with brushes and paint, using projections, stamps, and stencils to create a mechanical appearance |
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What You'll Learn
Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans
The series is considered a significant work of Pop Art, with Warhol elevating an everyday item found on grocery store shelves into a timeless symbol of the emerging art movement. By choosing Campbell's Soup as his subject, Warhol commented on the growing consumerism and mass production that dominated American life and culture in the 1960s. He wanted the paintings to look like they had been "taken directly from the supermarket shelves and placed on the wall", reflecting his fascination with consumer culture.
Warhol's process for creating the paintings involved projecting the image of a soup can onto a blank canvas, tracing the outline and details, and then filling it in with paint. He used a hand stamp to create the fleur-de-lys pattern around each label's bottom edge, adding a unique touch to each painting. The paintings were hand-painted depictions of printed imagery, blurring the lines between commercial products and fine art.
The choice to paint Campbell's Soup Cans was influenced by Warhol's own relationship with the product. He claimed to have eaten Campbell's Soup every day for 20 years and saw it as a quintessential American product. The classic label design, with its homey, cursive "Campbell's" script, also added a sense of nostalgia to the paintings.
The exhibition of the Campbell's Soup Cans series caused a sensation, with some people finding the paintings obnoxious and deserving of derision. However, the series launched Warhol's career, eventually turning him into a household name. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York now owns the complete set of 32 paintings, recognising their significance in the history of American art.
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Pop art movement
The name of Andy Warhol's famous soup painting is 'Campbell's Soup Cans'. It consists of 32 canvases, each consisting of a painting of a Campbell's Soup can, representing each variety the company offered at the time. The work was created between November 1961 and June 1962 and was exhibited in July 1962 at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles.
Now, onto the Pop Art movement.
Pop Art is an art movement that emerged in the mid-1950s in Britain and late 1950s in America, reaching its peak in the 1960s. It was a reaction to and expansion of the then-dominant ideas of abstract expressionism, as well as the elitist and exclusive culture of modernism. Young artists felt that what they were taught at art school and what they saw in museums did not reflect their lives or the world around them. They wanted to create art that was more accessible and representative of their everyday experiences.
The movement was characterised by the use of popular and commercial imagery, such as advertising, product packaging, pop music, comic books, and Hollywood movies. Artists like Warhol took these images from popular culture and elevated them to the level of fine art. This approach aimed to blur the boundaries between "high" art and "low" culture, challenging the idea of a hierarchy of culture and asserting that art may borrow from any source.
The Independent Group (IG), founded in London in 1952, is regarded as the precursor to the Pop Art movement. This group of young artists, writers, and critics challenged modernist approaches and traditional views of fine art, embracing sources such as mass advertising, movies, product design, and comic strips. Their work often incorporated found objects and graphics from American popular culture.
Pop Art also employed irony and humour to comment on the growing dominance of mass production and consumerism in American life and culture. While Abstract Expressionists glorified themselves as creative geniuses, Pop Artists sought to eliminate traces of their art-making processes, creating work that appeared mechanical and mass-produced. This approach reflected the mediated world of advertising and popular imagery that Pop Artists engaged with.
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Commercialism in art
The name of Andy Warhol's famous soup painting is 'Campbell's Soup Cans'. It consists of 32 canvases, each with a painting of a Campbell's Soup can—one of each variety the company offered at the time. The work was created between November 1961 and June 1962 and was exhibited in July 1962 at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles.
Warhol's soup can paintings are a prime example of commercialism in art. Commercial art refers to art created for commercial purposes, primarily advertising. It aims to promote the sale and interest of products, services, and ideas by relying on easily recognizable imagery. Warhol, a former commercial illustrator, applied his knowledge of commercial art to his fine art practice. He used everyday consumer products like Campbell's soup cans and Coca-Cola bottles as subjects, creating visually stimulating designs through pop art that advertised the products by alluding to consumers' habits.
The emergence of commercial art can be traced back to the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century. Rapid technological advancements led to a boom in mass production, and design for advertising and selling these products became a thriving industry. Designers used large letters, varied fonts, and highly contrasting colours to capture consumers' attention. With the development of chromolithography, advertisements evolved from text-only designs to detailed, colourful illustrations.
The relationship between commercialism and art is a complex one. Some argue that commercialism ruins art by reducing it to a commodity that is hidden away by wealthy buyers, preventing public enjoyment and access. Others view commercialism as enhancing art's sociological meaning and making it more interesting. For example, Jeff Koons' work with vacuum cleaners in display cases is now considered significant by major cultural institutions, showcasing how commercialism can elevate everyday objects into art.
Warhol's soup can paintings exemplify how commercialism in art can be a tool for critique. The paintings use humour and irony to comment on the dominance of mass production and consumerism in American culture. By employing mechanical techniques like projection and tracing, and then hiding the traces of his art-making process, Warhol created works that seemed almost mass-produced themselves. This contradiction in Pop art, between the handmade and the mechanical, reflected the themes Warhol was exploring.
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Warhol's inspiration
Andy Warhol's iconic soup painting is titled "Campbell's Soup Cans." This famous work of art was created in 1962 and consists of 32 canvases, each depicting a different variety of Campbell's soup flavour. Now, let's delve into the inspiration behind this seminal Pop Art piece:
The idea for "Campbell's Soup Cans" emerged from Warhol's fascination with everyday objects and brand imagery. He was intrigued by the ubiquitous presence of Campbell's soup in American households and how it represented a shared cultural experience. Growing up during the Great Depression, Warhol often consumed Campbell's soup, and it held a sense of familiarity and comfort for him. By the 1960s, when he created this artwork, Campbell's soup had become a staple in American kitchens, reflecting the country's post-war prosperity and the rise of convenience foods.
Warhol was drawn to the simple, bold design of the Campbell's soup can with its consistent red and white colour scheme. He admired the uniformity and the fact that each can, regardless of flavour, maintained the same basic design, differing only in the text that indicated the variety. This uniformity intrigued Warhol, and he saw beauty in the repetition and standardization of consumer goods. He once said, "What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest."
Additionally, Warhol was influenced by the emerging Pop Art movement, which challenged traditional fine art by embracing mass culture and everyday objects. Artists like Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg were already exploring similar themes, and Warhol wanted to contribute his unique perspective. He chose Campbell's soup cans as a subject matter that was instantly recognizable and accessible, blurring the lines between high art and commercial design.
The repetitive nature of the "Campbell's Soup Cans" painting also reflects Warhol's background in commercial art and his experience working in advertising and graphic design. He understood the power of repetition and the ability to create brand recognition through consistent imagery. Each canvas in the series is a carefully crafted silkscreen print, emphasizing the mechanical nature of mass production and the replication inherent in consumer culture.
Lastly, Warhol's Catholic upbringing may have also played a role in his inspiration. The repetitive nature of the 32 canvases could be interpreted as a modern take on religious altarpieces, with each canvas representing a variation on a theme, much like the repetitive nature of Catholic icons and imagery.
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Public and critical reception
Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans, a set of 32 canvases, was first exhibited in 1962 at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. The exhibition marked the West Coast debut of pop art. Each canvas measured 20 x 16 inches and depicted a Campbell's Soup can—one of each variety the company offered at the time. The paintings were displayed on shelves, resembling a grocery store aisle, and sparked a heated debate about the artistic value of commercial imagery. Abstract expressionism dominated the art scene at the time, and pop art had yet to gain critical acclaim.
The initial public and critical reception of Warhol's soup can paintings was mixed. Some people found the paintings obnoxious and deserving of derision, while others saw the sly, ironic humour in Warhol's "portraits" of soup cans. The exhibition challenged traditional notions of art and sparked a merging of commercial imagery and fine art. Only one canvas was sold during the first show, with collectors reserving four additional paintings. However, gallerist Irving Blum purchased all 32 canvases, recognising their potential and believing that the soup cans worked best as a complete set.
Despite the mixed reception of his first exhibition, Warhol's reputation and the popularity of the soup can paintings grew. By 1964, the asking price for a single soup can painting had shot up to $1,500, and New York socialites were wearing paper dresses in a soup can print. In the following years, Warhol and pop art rose to fame, and the Campbell's Soup Cans were eventually recognised as museum-worthy art. In 1996, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) purchased the 32 paintings from Blum for upwards of $15 million.
Throughout his career, Warhol faced criticism for his consumerism and open acceptance of market culture. However, he was also lauded for his boldness and directness in elevating capitalist symbols as art. He continued to explore the intersection of art and commerce, blending his pop art sensibility with commercial branding in various advertising projects. Warhol's work with the Campbell's Soup company in the 1980s, for example, highlighted their dry mix soups. While some critics viewed this as a return to his roots as a commercial artist, Warhol embraced the idea, suggesting he had always been doing commercial work.
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Frequently asked questions
Campbell's Soup Cans.
Warhol's soup paintings are about consumerism and mass production. The artist himself said, "I wanted to paint nothing. I was looking for something that was the essence of nothing, and that was it".
Warhol produced the paintings between November 1961 and June 1962.
There are 32 canvases in the Campbell's Soup Cans collection, each measuring 20 inches (51 cm) in height and 16 inches (41 cm) in width.
