Campbell's Soup Cans
"Two exhibitions in 1962 announced Andy Warhol's dramatic entry into the art world. In July, at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles, he exhibited his now-iconic Campbell's Soup Cans. The work's 32 canvases, each one featuring a different variety of the company's 32 soups, were lined up in a single row on a ledge that wrapped around the gallery. 'Cans sit on shelves,' the gallery director, Irving Blum, later said of the installation. 'Why not?' The paintings marked a breakthrough for Warhol, who had previously worked as a commercial illustrator: they were among his first works based on consumer goods, and among the first to embrace serial repetition. Although he hand-painted each canvas, they were made to seem mechanically produced" (MoAndy Warhol American, 1928–1987, MoMA).