Campbell's Soup Cans
Irving Blum made the original thirty-two canvases available to the public through an arrangement with the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC by placing them on permanent loan two days before Warhol's death. However, the original "Campbell's Soup Cans" is now a part of the Museum of Modern Art permanent collection. A print called "Campbell's Soup Cans II" is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. "200 Campbell's Soup Cans", 1962 (Acrylic on canvas, 72 inches x 100 inches), in the private collection of John and Kimiko Powers is the largest single canvas of the Campbell's Soup can paintings. It is composed of ten rows and twenty columns of numerous flavors of soups. Experts point to it as one of the most significant works of pop art both as a pop representation and as conjunction with immediate predecessors such as Jasper Johns and the successors movements of Minimal and Conceptual art. The very similar "100 Cans" from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery collection is shown above. The earliest soup can painting seems to be "Campbell's Soup Can (Tomato Rice)," a 1961 ink, tempera, crayon, and oil canvas.