Andy Warhol American , 1928-1987
35 x 23 1/8 in
Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans I Black Bean is an exploration of everyday consumer culture. Part of the groundbreaking Campbell’s Soup I series, this screenprint reflects Warhol’s fascination with mass-produced goods: a theme he explored throughout his career.
Warhol originally created the imagery in 1962 as a series of paintings, for his seminal exhibition at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. The artist told interviewers that the idea came about because he spent 20 years eating a tin of Campbell’s Tomato soup everyday for lunch, before he was able to afford the cost of dining out.
“I used to drink it [Campbell’s Soup]. I used to have the same lunch every day, for twenty years, I guess, the same thing over and over again.”
The Soup Can sets remained Andy Warhol’s favourites of all that he produced throughout his career: by elevating an everyday object to the status of fine art, Warhol challenges conventional notions of artistic value and the way we engage with art in a consumer-driven world.
Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans II isn’t just an edition - it’s a piece of cultural history; Andy Warhol’s legacy and art history itself. This series remains one of the most sought-after in the entirely of Warhol's output.
Literature
"Andy Warhol Prints. A Catalogue Raisonné 1962 - 1987" Artur Danto & Donna De Salvo, Fourth Edition revised and expanded by Frayda Feldman & Claudia Defendi, Ed. Schellmann, 2003, cf. no. II.44, p. 72 ill.