The First Survey of Works from Warhol's Iconic Campbell's Soup Series

Opening reception: Wednesday, February 16, 6-8PM

Highlights from the Exhibition

·         Campbell's Soup Can (Chicken with Rice), 1966 - a rare, cast-aluminum replica of a Soup Can from an edition of ten published by Ben Birillo and Leo Castelli

·         Campbell's Soup I, 1969 - a series of ten Soup Can prints, which became the most widely reproduced of Warhol's work

·         Colored Campbell's Soup Can (Double Exposure), 1971 - a Factory Polaroid of a Colored Campbell's Soup Can, with a haunting double exposure, taken in London at the time of his Tate Gallery exhibition

·         Campbell's Tomato Soup (Red), 1985 - a late painting where Warhol re-interprets his 1960's Soup Can painting

·         Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup Box, 1986 - from his late series which immortalized a then new line of Campbell's brand soup boxes

Andy Warhol and the Campbell's Soup Image

...If only I had stayed with doing the Campbell's Soup well, because everybody only does one painting anyway.  Doing it whenever you need money is a really good idea, just that one painting over and over again, which is what everybody remembers you for anyway.  - Andy Warhol from "An Interview with Andy Warhol," Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, 1985

In 1962 Warhol, who begins his career as a commercial illustrator, paints his first pop paintings of Campbell's Soup and has his first fine art exhibit at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles.  The Ferus exhibition features 32 individual, identically sized canvases (20" x 16") of each of the flavor varieties in the Campbell's lineup.  In 1964, Warhol is commissioned by the Campbell's Soup Company to create a 3 by 2 foot painting similar to his 1962 Tomato version. Warhol creates both the Large Campbell's Soup Cans, using the traditional Campbell's colors, and the Colored Campbell's Soup Cans of 1965, which are very experimental in hue and combinations of color.  He rounds out his Campbell's production of the Sixties working with publishers on a number of multiples and prints.  In 1966 he works with Ben Birillo and Leo Castelli on a multiple of a life-sized aluminum cast, Campbell's Soup Can (Chicken with Rice), and in 1968 and 1969 he produces two print portfolios including ten varieties each from the Campbell's Soup cupboard.  In 1979-1980, Warhol includes the Campbell's image in the Retrospective and Reversal series.

Warhol returns to Campbell's in 1985 reinterpreting the Soup Cans from the 1960's with paintings that are identical in format and size (20 x 16"). In 1986 he creates the Campbell's Soup Box paintings.  In keeping with the handmade nature of many of his late works, the screens for the canvases are derived from line drawings Warhol made of the recently launched line of boxed soups.  They are colored in a loose interpretive style, some of which are brandished with an enlarged painterly treatment of the Campbell's logo.  In February 1987 Warhol dies from complications following a routine gallbladder surgery.