Andy Warhol - Campbell’s Soup Can (Tomato) (FS II.4)

Campbell's Soup Can Print on Shopping Bag by Andy Warhol

Campbell’s Soup Can (Tomato) 4 by Andy Warhol and his portfolios depicting Campbell’s Soup cans are arguably his most iconic and widely recognized series of artwork. In this collection, Warhol takes the ever-present American pantry staple and transforms it into high art. Warhol was originally a commercial graphic artist. He found the imagery of the Campbell’s soup label a powerful visual tool since the design had remained successfully unchanged for decades. This particular print is unique, as it is printed on a grocery bag and is commonly referred to as Campbell’s Soup Shopping Bag. This bag was created in 1964 for the American Supermarket Exhibition at the Bianchini Gallery.

Campbell’s Soup Can (Tomato) 4 and the rest of the Campbell’s series were legitimate subjects as a modern still life during the postwar American society. First shown at the Ferus Gallery (Los Angeles) in 1962, the exhibit started as a series of paintings that eventually led to his fame and success. Furthermore, Warhol had just started to experiment with screenprinting a few years prior, which was a medium that would change the art world forever.

Some of the most famous and recognizable images in art history come from Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup series. This is mostly because of his screenprinting process and decision to depict banal subject matter, which helped redefine and complicate the concept of high art. This series helped to usher in the Pop Art movement that endures today, renewed and rediscovered by artists such as Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons. Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Shopping Bag is a truly unique piece, which takes two ordinary objects of a shopping bag and a can of soup and transforms them into a work of art.