Campbell's Soup Cans
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| Campbell's Soup Cans | |
|---|---|
 Brandon Fick · Public domain · source | |
| Title | Campbell's Soup Cans |
| Artist | Andy Warhol |
| Year | 1962 |
| Medium | Synthetic polymer paint on canvas |
| Dimensions | Various (each canvas 20 in × 16 in) |
| Location | Multiple public and private collections |
Campbell's Soup Cans is a seminal series of artworks produced in 1962 by Andy Warhol that consolidated his reputation within Pop art and connected visual art practices to consumer culture represented by Campbell Soup Company, New York City, and mid-20th-century mass production aesthetics. The series intersects trajectories involving Factory (Warhol), Exhibitionism in art, and debates exemplified by controversies around modern art shows at institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, Guggenheim Museum, and Whitney Museum of American Art.
Background and Creation
Warhol created the series after returning to New York City from a commercial illustration career at agencies including Glamour (magazine), Harper's Bazaar, and Vogue (magazine), amid interactions with figures like Elizabeth Taylor, Edie Sedgwick, and Gerard Malanga. The work emerged within a network involving galleries such as The Stable Gallery, collectors such as Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, and critics from publications including Artforum, The New York Times, and The Village Voice. Influences and antecedents included Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, and graphic design exemplars from Helvetica-era typography and American advertising art directed by agencies like J. Walter Thompson. Funding, materials, and studio practice intersected with commercial suppliers and technical collaborators tied to silkscreen printing techniques and painters from scenes around SoHo, Chelsea (Manhattan), and the East Village, Manhattan.
Artwork Description and Variants
The original Campbell's canvases comprise thirty-two separate canvases, each depicting a different flavor from Campbell Soup Company's product line, executed in a realist register using synthetic polymer paint and later reproduced via silkscreen processes associated with staff at The Factory (Warhol), Robert Indiana, and print studios such as Tamarind Institute. Variants include single canvases, screenprints, embossed works, and later revisions made for institutions like the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and private collections belonging to collectors like MoMA Trustees and patrons such as Peggy Guggenheim. The imagery references packaging design conventions used by Campbell's Soup Company and aligns with serial works by artists including Donald Judd, Frank Stella, Claes Oldenburg, and John Baldessari. Multiple iterations were shown alongside related series like Marilyn Diptych and Elvis (series), and reproductions circulated in publications such as Life (magazine) and Art in America.
Production and Exhibition History
Warhol debuted the series at The Stable Gallery in a 1962 exhibition organized by gallery owner Stable Gallery (owner Eleanor Ward), provoking attention from curators at the Museum of Modern Art, Guggenheim Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, and critics affiliated with Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg. Production evolved from hand-painted canvases to silkscreen prints produced at locations associated with printmakers and collaborators like Samuelle, Billy Name, and Brigid Berlin. The works circulated through auction houses including Christie's and Sotheby's, and were acquired for institutional holdings at the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Tate Modern, and corporate collections such as those of J. Paul Getty Museum donors and foundations including the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
Critical Reception and Influence
Initial reviews by critics in The New York Times, Artforum, and The New Yorker ranged from praise by proponents aligned with Pop art advocacy to denunciations from formalists connected to Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg. The series has been analyzed in scholarship by authors publishing with Columbia University Press, Harvard University Press, and journals such as October (journal), influencing pedagogy at institutions like Yale University, Princeton University, and New York University. Its influence extends to artists and movements including Jeff Koons, Shepard Fairey, Barbara Kruger, Haim Steinbach, Richard Prince, and contemporary practices in appropriation art, advertising art, and museum display strategies employed by institutions like the Tate Modern and Centre Pompidou.
Legal and Commercial Issues
The use of corporate imagery precipitated legal and commercial questions involving trademark and copyright claims with entities such as the Campbell Soup Company and invoked jurisprudence referenced in cases heard in courts like the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and debates in legal scholarship from Harvard Law Review and Yale Law Journal. Issues included licensing, reproduction rights managed by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, corporate partnerships between artists and brands exemplified by later collaborations involving Louis Vuitton, and auction disputes adjudicated at New York County Supreme Court venues. Commercial exploitation raised questions addressed by commentators in The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and art market analysts at Artnet and Artprice.
Cultural Legacy and Media References
Campbell's Soup imagery permeates popular culture through references in films such as Blow-Up (film), television programs like The Simpsons, and music videos by artists including Madonna, Kanye West, and Beyoncé Knowles. The iconography appears in advertising retrospectives at exhibitions in Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and commercial collaborations with fashion houses like Prada and Calvin Klein. Scholarship and media treatments about Warhol and the series feature in documentaries produced by BBC, PBS, and networks such as HBO, and continue to be debated in cultural histories published by Oxford University Press and exhibited in retrospectives at institutions including the Tate Modern, Museum of Modern Art, and the Guggenheim Museum.