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concept:era contemporary

Campbell's Soup Cans

Series of 32 canvases by Andy Warhol, 1962, each depicting a different variety of Campbell's condensed soup. Synthetic polymer paint on canvas; each canvas 50.8 × 40.6 cm. Held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. A landmark of Pop Art.

Scholarly Significance

Anchor the Pop Art cluster with Warhol's landmark series of 32 canvases depicting Campbell's Soup cans, held at MoMA.

Notes

  • ·Consists of 32 canvases, one for each variety of Campbell's condensed soup available at the time.
  • ·First exhibited at Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles, in July 1962, marking a Pop Art breakthrough moment.
  • ·MoMA acquired the complete series in 1996 as a gift from Irving Blum, the Ferus Gallery dealer.
  • ·The work is central to scholarly debates about whether Warhol was celebrating or critiquing American consumer culture.
  • ·Warhol used a semi-mechanical, quasi-commercial process to produce the paintings, emphasizing sameness and seriality.