Campbell's Soup Cans Andy Warhol Analysis

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Have you ever thought about what your favorite Campbell’s soup is? Well, I have to say that Campbell’s Homestyle Chicken Noodle Soup is my favorite. In the Campbell’s Soup Cans painting by Andy Warhol, it more than likely includes each of our favorites since it has thirty-two different soups. Today we will examine many facts related to the painting including information about the painting, the artist of the image, the patron, and the importance of this painting. First, we will look at the image information. In 1962, Andy Warhol painted Campbell’s Soup Cans. The soup cans were painted using synthetic polymer paint and mimicked silk-screened images. The painting is a collection of thirty-two canvases, each containing a depiction of different …show more content…

The patron for Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans was Irving Blum. Irving Blum was born in 1930 in New York. His family moved to Arizona during the war in 1942. During his younger years, Blum became interested in theater. Once he began to work in the theater, Irving Blum soon found that theater was not for him. Irving happened to visit museums while in New York and realized that he had an interest in art. In 1957, Irving moved to California and a year later Blum was able to buy a share in the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. The Ferus Gallery was the first gallery in Los Angeles to show contemporary American art. In showing contemporary American art, the gallery helped establish reputations for New York artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella, and Andy Warhol. In 1962, Andy Warhol had his first solo exhibition at Ferus Gallery. Mr. Warhol’s exhibition was so successful that night that he sold five of the canvases from the Campbell’s Soup Cans collection. Irving Blum, being an art dealer and collector at that time, bought them back so that he could keep the set intact (Cummings). He paid one thousand dollars for the whole set of soup can paintings. Later on, Blum partially sold and partially gifted the collection to The Museum of Modern Art, where it is still located today (The Museum of Modern …show more content…

The subject of the painting by Andy Warhol is, of course, soup cans. Mr. Warhol hand painted each of the thirty-two soup cans. Since the cans were hand painted, there are some small inconsistencies among each soup can. Some of the inconsistencies are that the red paint looks orange on some of the cans, there are variations in the black shadows on the silver tops, and one of the cans is missing a gold ring. Even though there were inconsistencies, Warhol was still able to accurately depict the most recognizable soup cans from the store. When they were first installed at MOMA, the canvases were placed in four rows with three inches between each one. The museum decided on this arrangement so the viewers could easily see all thirty-two canvases. The canvases were arranged to reflect the chronological order in which the soups were introduced. Now, the soup cans are displayed on an eye-level shelf. Being displayed on a shelf that wraps around the room, draws the viewer to look at the soup cans one by one (The Museum of Modern

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