Campbell's Soup Cans

Campbell's Soup Cans is a series of 32 paintings produced by American artist Andy Warhol between 1961 and 1962. Each painting depicts a different variety of Campbell's soup cans in a uniform 20-by-16-inch format. First exhibited in July 1962 at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles, the works marked a breakthrough for Pop art and challenged traditional distinctions between fine art and commercial imagery. Warhol's association with the subject led to his name becoming synonymous with the Campbell's soup cans. The series catapulted Warhol to fame and reshaped debates about originality, reproduction, and the meaning of art in a consumer society.

Drawing on his background as a commercial illustrator, Warhol transformed everyday packaging into high art, prompting initial controversy but eventual acclaim. The Campbell's Soup Cans series generally refers to the original 32 canvases, but it also encompasses Warhol's many subsequent variations: approximately 20 similar paintings produced in the early 1960s; a 1965 set of 20 larger multi-colored canvases; numerous related drawings, sketches, and stencils created over the years; and two separate editions of 250 ten-print screen print portfolios issued in 1968 and 1969. The original 32 canvases were preserved by art dealer Irving Blum and later acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in 1996.

Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans are widely regarded as a canonical symbol of Pop art and one of the most influential bodies of art of the 20th century. The later sets of screen prints are sometimes confused with the original 1962 series, and unauthorized prints have also circulated, complicating the work's legacy and intellectual property status. Despite this, the series has maintained a lasting presence in popular culture, inspiring derivative works by other artists and achieving multimillion-dollar results in the art market.