More than a Product: a Souper Can
By Carmen Lei
Open the kitchen drawer with your hands
You’ll find a thousand cans
The trend will never end
And you’ll love it without sense
Is it a can of soup or a piece of art? Warhol used ordinary objects of contemporary life in the 1960s’ as his subjects and raised everyday life to the status of art. His name is synonymous with the Campbell’s soup can – the soup can that is also a treasure. The treasure has made a great influence on generations of artists and Warhol showed us that he could turn commercial art into pop art.
Andy Warhol said, “I love it…I just paint
things I always thought were
beautiful…Because I used to drink
(Campbell’s Soup). I used to have the same
lunch every day for 20 years.”
Walk through any major supermarkets around the globe and it is likely that you will come across the product with a red-and-white label – the Campbell’s Soup. This canned soup is not only a consumer product but the most reproduced image across cultures from the 1960s onwards. The image has been integrated into graffiti, screen-printed on a T-shirt or even become an iconoclastic painting which displayed in the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
The ubiquitous pop painting Campbell’s Soup in 1962 had catapulted Andy Warhol, one of the greatest American avant garde artists, to fame. He had painted the masterpiece 100 Cans in 1962 and the Campbell’s Soup Can (Tomato) in 1964. Throughout his life, the Campbell’s Soup had become a part of him and he could not even be compartmentalized from it in the world of art.
In 1897, Dr. John T. Dorrance, the founder of the Campbell’s condensed soups, brought the soups successfully to the public conscious for its convenience and low price. At that time, each can sold for ten cents and this price definitely attracted the potential consumers. Dorrance turned the soup into a must-have consumer good among the lifestyle choices. The product was awarded a gold medal at the Paris Exposition in 1900 for the image of which still appears on its label, and this was the certification of its success.
The image and label will last to the end
That’s the red-white label Can
For Warhol painted the “100 Cans”
They all exploded with a bang!
As the Campbell’s is so renowned in the American culture and so illustrious in the pop art, people will spend millions of dollars for art pieces that make reference to it. At the Sotheby’s auction of New York in 1998, the Campbell Souper Dress produced by the Campbell’s soup had been sold for an amazing price of US $6,900! Rather than just a simple consumer product, the Campbell’s Soup has become a distinguished product of visual art and a popular culture.
“Mr. Pop Art”, Andy Warhol, found inspiration and produced works using a wide variety of images from sources like mass media and commerce. Being a commercial illustrator at that time, Warhol’s motives as an artist were questioned and this led to a great deal of controversy. He wanted to make the society aware of his own obsession. He made the soup accessible to all people of all classes and races. Warhol was not just making a commercial illustration; he was making art that was brewing inside him and the society at the same time he was reflecting concerns and anxieties of his time. Most importantly, he was making art from a can of soup.
