Knowra Campbell's Soup Cans Campbell's Soup Cans A 1962 artwork by Andy Warhol comprising 32 canvases, each depicting a different variety of Campbell’s condensed soup. Its repeated commercial imagery became a landmark of Pop art.
Pop art : An art movement that drew imagery and methods from mass media, advertising, and consumer culture. Warhol’s use of a supermarket brand places the work within this movement.
Andy Warhol : An American artist and filmmaker associated with Pop art and images of celebrity, commodities, and mass media. He conceived and made the 32-canvas work in 1962.
Ferus Gallery : A Los Angeles gallery that helped introduce Pop art to the West Coast art world. It hosted the work’s first exhibition in 1962.
Walter Benjamin : A German philosopher and cultural critic whose writing examined art, technology, and mass reproduction. His account of mechanical reproduction offers a framework for the work’s repeated commodity image.
Silkscreen printing : A printing process that transfers ink through a mesh screen, often using a stencil to control the image. Warhol later used this process to reproduce commercial imagery with deliberate variation.
Commercial art : Visual work created to promote products, services, or organizations. Warhol’s experience as an illustrator informed his crisp, advertising-like imagery.
Irving Blum : An American art dealer who directed the Ferus Gallery and championed emerging Pop artists. He bought the 32 paintings together after their initial exhibition.
Artistic originality : The quality of being novel or distinctive in an artwork’s conception, form, or execution. Warhol made originality difficult to separate from the repetition of an existing package design.
Repetition in art : The recurrence of forms or images within an artwork or across a body of work. The 32 canvases make repetition the work’s organizing structure.
Campbell's : An American food company best known for its canned soups and distinctive red-and-white labels. Its soup varieties supplied the images and brand identity depicted in the series.
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