why Andy Warhol’s Campbell Soup Can was so revolutionary in the art world.
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He took a regular massed produced object, something most Americans would see everyday, and reproduced it as “art” on a canvas in a way that could be mass produced. They were created with silkscreens. Each painting was only 20 inches tall and at their first exhibition they were lined up across a wall, each on a little shelf, just like you would see at a grocery store. This was part of phase he worked on of basically everyday art. The first attempt was painting of US currency, which never became as popular as the soup cans.
He did 3 different series of these paintings, the original 32 in their standard colors, 32 distressed ones (torn labels, dented cans) and a series of inverted and random colors. He also did groups of cans, including the 100 cans print.
An interesting fact is that Warhol may have been autistic. Around the time the art was produced someone went into his apartment, opened a cabinet, and it was filled with Campbell’s tomato soup. Apparently he had a can of tomato soup for lunch for years. The story goes that someone told him to paint something he sees everyday.
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