38 Fun Facts About Campbell's Soup Cans

Which artist painted the Campbell's Soup Cans series?

He was a successful commercial illustrator looking for a subject that would set him apart from Lichtenstein and Rosenquist.

How many canvases make up the original Campbell's Soup Cans series?

Each shows a different variety of Campbell's soup on the same 20-by-16-inch canvas.

In which city were the Campbell's Soup Cans first exhibited, in July 1962?

Warhol did not attend, there was no formal opening, and the show coincided with La Cienega Boulevard's Monday Art Walk.

What was the name of the West Coast space that gave the soup cans their first show?

Its owner had visited Warhol's studio in May 1962, when he was working on his sixteenth soup can, and was amazed he had no dealer.

Which art dealer kept the original 32 canvases together as a set and eventually helped MoMA acquire them?

He put them on permanent loan to the National Gallery of Art in 1987, two days before Warhol died, and MoMA bought them in 1996.

How were the paintings displayed at their 1962 debut?

The dealer set them in a single row on narrow ledges, like groceries on a shelf; MoMA recreated that shelf-like line in its 2015 Warhol show.

How much did Warhol charge the dealer for the complete set of 32 paintings in 1962?

The dealer paid Warhol $1,000 for the whole set, in monthly instalments of $100, after reclaiming the canvases that had been sold.

Which actor bought a soup can painting in 1962, then was persuaded to return it?

Dennis Hopper was among the handful of buyers; he and his wife Brooke Hayward later hosted a party introducing Warhol to Hollywood during his second show at the gallery in 1963.

Roughly how many of the 32 paintings sold during the 1962 show before Blum reassembled the set?

Five or six canvases sold, at $100 apiece, before the dealer persuaded the purchasers to give them back so the set could stay intact.

What happened on 4 August 1962, the day the soup can exhibition closed?

Marilyn Monroe died that night; within weeks Warhol began his silkscreened Marilyn portraits, moving from supermarket shelves to celebrity.

Contrary to popular belief, how were the original 32 canvases made?

They were among the last works Warhol painted largely by hand; he only mastered silkscreen later, learning from Floriano Vecchi of Tiber Press.

What detail on each can did Warhol apply with a rubber stamp?

The gold fleur-de-lis emblems ringing the base of each can were applied with a hand-carved rubber stamp; the rest was painted in synthetic polymer paint.

Whose photographs of soup cans did Warhol trace to make the original 32 paintings?

Warhol had already used Wallowitch's photographs as source material for his self-published A Gold Book in 1957.

Who reputedly advised Warhol, for a $50 fee, to paint 'something you see every day', like a soup can?

Muriel Latow, a gallery owner, gave the idea in late 1961 for $50, Ted Carey recalled; Robert Indiana said simply that Warhol liked soup.

How long did Warhol claim he ate the same Campbell's soup lunch every day?

Warhol told an interviewer he had eaten the same lunch every day 'for twenty years, I guess, the same thing over and over again'.

What did a Campbell's marketing manager send Warhol in 1964 with a letter praising his work?

William MacFarland, Campbell's product marketing manager, wrote to Warhol in May 1964 that he had learned the artist liked the soup and was sending a couple of cases of tomato soup.

What inspired the red-and-white Campbell's label of 1898 that Warhol later immortalised?

Herberton Williams, a Campbell's executive, admired the Cornell football team's red-and-white uniforms at a game in 1898; the label adopted the colours that year and added a Paris Exposition gold medal in 1900.

What year did Joseph A. Campbell and icebox maker Abraham Anderson found Campbell's?

Joseph A. Campbell, a fruit merchant, and Abraham Anderson, an icebox maker, founded the firm in Camden, New Jersey, in 1869; Anderson left the partnership in 1876.

Warhol's 1962 painting 100 Cans belongs to a museum in which city?

100 Cans, a 1962 canvas of Campbell's cans in a square grid, belongs to the Albright-Knox collection in Buffalo, New York, renamed the Buffalo AKG Art Museum in 2023.

What object appears in the 1962 painting that was the first Warhol shown in a museum?

Big Campbell's Soup Can with Can Opener (Vegetable) is the only work in the series to show one; it sold for $27.5 million in 2017.

How is Warhol's largest single soup can canvas, from 1962, arranged?

200 Campbell's Soup Cans, painted in 1962, sets 200 cans in ten rows and twenty columns on a 72-by-100-inch canvas, the largest of Warhol's soup can paintings.

What did Warhol change for his set of twenty large soup can canvases in 1965?

For the 1965 series Warhol replaced the red-and-white with bold, varied colours, printing the label in combinations such as green on pink, using silkscreen rather than the hand-painting of 1962.

How many screen prints are in each of the Campbell's Soup I (1968) and Campbell's Soup II (1969) portfolios?

Each portfolio holds ten screen prints, issued in an edition of 250; the 1969 set shows later varieties with more elaborate labels.

What disclaimer appeared on some unauthorised Brussels reprints of the screen prints?

Warhol signed a few of the Sunday B. Morning prints 'This is not by me' after a dispute over the 1970 Brussels editions, which were made from his screens and colour codes.

Which flavour was on the torn-label can painting that set a $60,000 record for a living American artist in 1970?

Big Torn Campbell's Soup Can (Vegetable Beef) fetched $60,000 at Parke-Bernet in May 1970; Roy Lichtenstein's Big Painting No. 6 took the record at $75,000 that November.

Which collector paid $11,776,000 for Small Torn Campbell Soup Can (Pepper Pot) in 2006?

Eli Broad bought Small Torn Campbell Soup Can (Pepper Pot) at Christie's New York in May 2006; it entered the collection of The Broad museum, which opened in 2015.

Approximately how much did MoMA pay for the original 32 canvases in 1996?

MoMA paid about $15 million, drawing on the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest and other funds plus a partial gift from the dealer, whose 1962 purchase had cost a tiny fraction of that.

How does MoMA normally arrange the 32 canvases on its wall?

At the National Gallery of Art they had hung in a four-row, eight-column grid in alphabetical order.

What did the promotional 'Souper Dress' of 1967 cost customers?

The paper Souper Dress could be ordered for $1 plus two soup can labels in 1967; examples are held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute.

In 2012 Campbell's sold Warhol-inspired tomato soup cans through which US retailer?

Target sold about 1.2 million limited-edition cans at 75 cents each from September 2012, marking the fiftieth anniversary of the paintings.

In which animated sitcom does Warhol throw soup cans at the main character in a 1999 episode?

In The Simpsons episode 'Mom and Pop Art' (1999), Homer dreams that Warhol pelts him with cans of Campbell's soup.

Which 1964 Bianchini Gallery show in New York included Warhol's signed real Campbell's cans?

The American Supermarket, staged at the Bianchini Gallery in October 1964, was laid out like a grocery store; Warhol's autographed real Campbell's cans sold there for a few dollars each.

What did Time magazine call Warhol and the artists treating banal everyday objects as high art in May 1962?

Time's 'The Slice-of-Cake School' of May 1962 grouped Warhol with Lichtenstein, Rosenquist, Wesselmann and Thiebaud; Warhol told it he painted 'things you use every day and never think about'.

How many prints from a Campbell's Soup I portfolio were stolen from the Springfield Art Museum in 2016?

Seven prints from the set were taken in April 2016; the FBI offered a $25,000 reward and the museum later received a $750,000 insurance payout.

Which climate protest hit a Campbell's Soup I set at the National Gallery of Australia in November 2022?

Two Stop Fossil Fuel Subsidies protesters glued themselves to the prints and scrawled on them in blue marker on November 9, 2022; the works were undamaged behind their covering.

Which New York dealer cancelled a Warhol show planned for December 1962?

Martha Jackson withdrew the planned December 1962 show; Eleanor Ward's Stable Gallery gave Warhol his New York debut instead in November 1962.

How much did Big Campbell's Soup Can With Can Opener (Vegetable) fetch at Christie's in May 2017?

It made $27.5 million with fees at Christie's New York on May 17, 2017, well above the $60,000 that set a record in 1970.

Which appropriation artist, who saw the 1962 Ferus show, debuted there in 1965 with reinterpretations of the cans?

Richard Pettibone began copying Warhol's soup cans at postcard scale in 1964 and showed the miniatures at the same gallery in 1965.