Campbell's Soup Can

© The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Campbell Trademarks used with permission of Campbell Soup Company
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Campbell's Soup Can

United States, 1964
Paintings
Oil on canvas
36 × 24 in. (91.44 × 60.96 cm)
Gift of Robert H. Halff through the Modern and Contemporary Art Council (M.2005.38.12)
Modern Art
Currently on public view:
Broad Contemporary Art Museum, floor 3

Since gallery displays may change often, please contact us before you visit to make certain this item is on view.

Label

Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans became Pop art icons when they were first exhibited at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles in 1962....
Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans became Pop art icons when they were first exhibited at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles in 1962. The show featured thirty-two paintings, representing each variety of soup available at that time. Like other Pop artists, Warhol appropriated images and techniques associated with commercial culture—he carefully reproduced the distinctive Campbell’s Soup label to mimic its appearance in supermarkets and advertisements for the product.

Although the subject had popular appeal, it also had a personal association for the artist: when asked why he chose to paint Campbell’s Soup cans, he replied: “I used to drink it. I used to have the same lunch every day, for twenty years.” This painting was commissioned by the Campbell’s Soup Company in 1964 as a gift for their retiring board chairman.

Wall label, 2021.
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Bibliography

  • Zalman, Sandra. Consuming Surrealism in American Culture: Dissident Modernism. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2015.
  • Barron, Stephanie. Acknowledgments, or Every Label Tells a Story. Los Angeles: Art Catalogues: LACMA, 2017.