Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol started making “portraits” of each of the 32 varieties of Campbell’s soups against a white background. “Tomato soup will never be just tomato soup again,” said one art critic. Over the next two years, he continued to paint a series of Campbell’s soup cans. Sometimes he used stencils and other times he used pencil, ink, crayons, acrylic and oil paints. He painted enormous still lifes or sad-looking soups with torn labels. Often times he multiplied the can image with the silkscreen method. One of the most famous pieces in the series is 100 Cans multiplying Beef Noodle soup 100 times. His soup series appeared in an art gallery in the summer of 1962. But not everyone appreciated his new approach to modern art. A supermarket stacked Campbell’s soup in the window with a sign that read, “the real thing for only 29 cents a can.” He used the public putdown as publicity. He took a photographer to the market and had his picture taken signing the cans of soup. The photo appeared in newspapers everywhere.
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