Andy Warhol was a master of pop art – and also a master of the mundane. “When you see a Campbell’s Soup can, you want to paint it,” he once explained. “I just do it because I like it.”
Only artists themselves can know their true intentions. But whether by accident or design, Warhol’s decision in the early 1960s to paint everyday objects felt like a deliberate act of rebellion against the prevailing norms, a declaration that the ordinary could be elevated to high art. They also seemed to serve as a commentary on consumer culture. In an era marked by the rise of mass production and consumerism, Warhol’s artwork apparently reflected the ubiquity and homogeneity of consumer goods in American society and also the dehumanising processes of their creation and consumption.
Yet Warhol’s own quotes about his breakthrough work – 32 canvases depicting different flavours of Campbell’s Soup, each measuring 51×41 cm – contain none of this context. Instead, he offered only the vagueness that would become his trademark. There is little more expansive than: “I used to drink it. I used to have the same lunch every day, for 20 years, I guess, the same thing over and over again.” He chose Campbell’s, he said, as it showed that “what’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you can know that the president drinks Coke. Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too.”
What seems clear is that the soup cans were inspired by a conversation between Warhol and the gallery owner and interior designer Muriel Latow, who later in life became a prolific author, publishing under the name Roberta Latow.
Warhol had begun the decade 1960s by producing paintings based on comic books, but recognised that this would see him following firmly in the footsteps of Roy Liechtenstein. His decision to learn silkscreening in early 1961 was decisive, allowing Warhol to repeat an image and to create multiple illustrations along a similar theme.
There are two versions of Latow’s game-changing conversation with the young artist. The first is that the Upper East Side gallerist asked him what he loved most, and when he replied “money”, suggested that he paint it. Warhol did indeed do this, and his Dollar Bill series marks the first instance of Warhol’s use of the silkscreening method..
But the more enduring story is that Latow told Warhol that he should paint “something you see every day and something that everybody would recognise. Something like a can of Campbell’s Soup.” Warhol is said to have responded, “Oh that sounds fabulous.”
Warhol appears to have begun creating the soup cans in November 1961, and on November 23 was confident enough in the idea to write Latow a cheque for $50 in recognition of her idea. Finished by April 1962, they were exhibited for the first time in July, with actor Dennis Hopper buying one of the cans for just $100.
Latow’s intervention changed the course of Warhol’s career, inspiring subsequent generations of artists to explore new forms of expression. But did he mean to make a biting comment on consumerism and a throwaway society – or was this an example of one of his most famous aphorisms: “Art is what you can get away with”?