Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans are perhaps the most well-known images of American modern art and have become a symbol of American Pop Art. Initially created as a series of thirty-two canvases in 1962, it was first exhibited at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles, and displayed together like product at a grocery store. Between the 32 flavors, there are subtle differences and imperfections, meaning that this really was ‘high’ art dwelling on a ‘low’ — everyday, readily available or seemingly mundane — subject. The very essence of Pop Art itself. Warhol’s inspiration for the series developed from his personal life. He explained: “I used to drink it. I used to have the same lunch every day, for 20 year, I guess, the same thing over and other”. This sense of repetition was both internalized by the artist and embodied by commercial mass culture. This limited edition belongs to a later series of Campbell’s Soup cans produced around 1965, 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 portion of the label in different colours. The result was a collection that was both unexpected and familiar.
“ I don’t think art should be only for the select few. I think it should be for the mass of the American people „