Andy Warhol, Campbell's Soup Can (Green & Purple), Digital Print

Andy Warhol, Campbell's Soup Can, 1965 (green & purple)

250gsm coated graphic paper

Image size 30 × 20 cm (11.81 x 7.87 in)

Paper size 36 × 28 cm (11.02 x 14.17 in)

Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans are among the most recognizable and celebrated works in the history of art. Warhol began his Campbell’s Soup Can paintings around 1961, and the subject would take various forms in the years to follow. The Ferus type of Campbell’s Soup can paintings, which take their name from the thirty-two paintings of individual cans exhibited at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles, are the largest and best known of Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup paintings. For these paintings, Warhol painted the well-known red and white cans, referring to a product list supplied by the Campbell Soup Company and checking off each type of soup as it was completed. A later series of Campbell’s Soup cans, produced around 1965, is comprised of nineteen different coloured cans. For these works, Warhol not only used ink colours that departed from real colours, but also spray painted the back-grounds and the lower (white) portion of the label in different colours. The result was a collection that was both unexpected and familiar. Through these ground breaking works, Warhol challenged our way of thinking about art.