CAMPBELL'S CONSOMME CAN WARHOL POSTER

Campbell’s soup cans became not only one of the defining works of Andy Warhol’s art career but also of the Pop Art movement which, like Warhol, was interested in mass production and consumer culture.  This 1990s soup can poster has a story not only about its production, but also about its connection with Andy Warhol and a printing group, Sunday B. Morning in Belgium.

In the 1970s, Warhol and Sunday B. Morning printed a run of posters using 1967 Factory Edition photo negatives and the color codes as a second series of prints.  The back of that series was stamped “Fill In Your Own Signature,” and Warhol randomly signed a selection of them, “This is not by me. Andy Warhol,” which made them even more valuable. 

In the 1990s, after Warhol's death, Sunday B. Morning began making the prints again. They are stamped “fill in your own signature” and “published by Sunday B. Morning" in blue ink on the back and are referred to as the Blue Ink Series. The poster offered here is from this Blue Ink Series.

Originally, the Campbell's soup can motif was part of a series exhibited as 32 paintings at the Ferras Gallery in Los Angeles in 1962. Each individual 20 x 16 inch soup can painting was exhibited on a shallow shelf not unlike cans at a grocery store.  The complete set is in the Museum of Modern Art collection.

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) was one of the most important artists and filmmakers of the 20^th century.  Sometimes known as the “King of Pop,” he is mainly known for taking something mundane like a soup can and making Art out of it.  His subjects, like packaged food, are everywhere, and his celebrity portraits depict people who are cultural icons in a variety of media including printmaking, photography, drawing, and film.

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