Andy Warhol "Old Fashioned Vegetable from Campbell's Soup II "

One of Andy Warhol’s most recognisable motifs, the Campbell’s Soup Can, is a perfect example of his love for mass production and consumer society.

It is thought the idea to use the soup can came about when Warhol was producing a series based on comic books, inspired by Roy Lichtenstein. His friend Muriel Latow, who he was paying for consultation, suggested he paint something that ‘everybody would recognise’. When eating his Campbell’s Tomato soup, a lunch he ate everyday for 20 years before he could afford the cost of dining out, the idea came to him.

Warhol first exhibited the series in 1962 at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. The pieces were presented on shelves as an attempt to replicate a supermarket display of mass produced goods. 

The exhibition was initially met with criticism with one commentator calling Warhol “a soft-headed fool or a hard-headed charlatan,”. However, Irving Blum, the owner of the Ferus Gallery, regretted selling the pieces separately after Warhol had achieved both critical and popular recognition in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He then purchased the paintings back to preserve the series, an endeavour that is believed to have solidified their reputation.

In 1996 he sold the entire set of paintings for $15 million to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where they can still be seen on display today. Single canvases from the wider Campbell’s Soup painting series, which can reach anything from $4 million to $9million at auction, can be found in public collections all over the world.

Available to purchase from Clifton Gallery

Old Fashioned Vegetable from Campbell's Soup II (Soup Can, F.&S.54)

The Campbells Soup Cans II series, produced in 1969, is a collection of 10 screenprints of 10 variations of flavours. Each print aligns exactly with the other sets of images allowing for the entire portfolio to be uniform, with a mass-produced aesthetic that Warhol aimed for. 

The cans have vibrant red, yellow, and white colours with black print lettering, and look lively and graphic like the labels on the real soup cans. Each can is different from the other due to Warhol choosing to include hyper-realistic details of shadows and refracting light on the tin lids.

Print details:

Colour screenprint on wove paper

58.5 x 88.9 cm

1969

Edition of 250

Hand signed in pen by Andy Warhol on the reverse

Stamped edition number on the reverse

Published by Factory Additions, New York

"Old Fashioned Vegetable" is now available to purchase from Clifton gallery. For more details or to enquire about the work please get in touch.

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