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Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup has become a defining emblem of American consciousness. Created by Warhol in 1962 as a series of 32 paintings of Campbell’s Soup flavours, it was exhibited in his first solo show at Fergus Gallery in Los Angeles. The series, which Warhol reproduced prolifically throughout his career in the form of screenprints, attempted to capture the mechanical production process that challenges the beliefs of how ‘high-art’ is created. In the 1970s, some of his prints were handed out for free at exhibitions, or printed onto tote bags, which people blue-tacked onto their wall or used as shopping bags. The series is also an ode to food and post-war consumerism. Warhol said of Campbell’s soup, ‘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’.
