From Campbell's to fame...

Andy Warhol could be considered one of America’s front runners in the American Pop Art Movement of the 60’s and 70’s. While he was an eccentric man who expressed himself in major artwork, he also had many other talents, including, commercial illustrating, filmmaking, music industry producer, and writer. He was a celebrity in his own time and used many famous icons such as Marilyn Monroe, Muhammad Ali, and Elvis as inspiration. He founded “The Factory,” his personal studio, early on in his career and later painted Liz Taylor, Judy Garland, Michael Jackson, and countless other pop icons. From the creation of the Campbell’s Soup labels to the contribution of a new era in American Art, Warhol became a quite influential man. While Andy Warhol, the man, is important, the artwork he produced is also influential and captured a large part of America’s pop culture.

In “Soup Can Mainia,” the author discusses Warhol’s influence on culture through his creation of the Campbell’s soup label and other major works of art. The nature of Warhol’s work is made clear when the author points out, “the repetitive nature of many of his compositions and series suggests an art of the assembly line, and Warhol’s expressed idea to make use of mass production techniques such as screen printing for his canvas and prints” (Kinsman, 1). This being the thesis the author goes on to discuss Warhol’s use of projection to paint directly onto the stretched canvas. Warhol wanted to distance himself from the Abstract Expressionist by adding a human touch to his artwork (Kinsman, 1). After frustrating attempts at cartoons, Warhol turned to a friend who suggested he use an everyday subject, like a can of soup. He then set out to create labels for Campbell Soup Company and gained instant fame (Kinsman, 1). The labels he created are the ones still seen on the cans today. That the screen print of a soup can could be considered art astonished many people and he became an instant success (Kinsman, 1). In a later interview, Warhol said that his favorite piece remained as the Campbell Soup labels (Kinsman, 1).

While this author credited Warhol’s fast fame to the soup can label, it seems that others believe his later works with celebrities to be much more important. In a contrasting article, the Artchive, an online art journal, states (referring to the period after the Campbell’s work), “From then on, most of Warhol's best work was done over a span of about six years, finishing in 1968, when he was shot. And it all flowed from one central insight: that in a culture glutted with information, where most people experience most things at second or third hand through TV and print, through images that become banal and disassociated by repeated again and again and again, there is role for affectless art” (Artchive, 1). They go on to support this idea by saying that Warhol was a conduit for a collective American state of mind in which celebrity had completely replaced both sacredness and solidity (Artchive, 1). While Kinsman argued that Warhol tried to add a human touch to his work, the Artchive suggests that Warhol wanted to create affectless art. “This affectlessness, this fascinated and yet indifferent take on the object, became the key to Warhol's work; it is there in the repetition of stars' faces…and as a record of the condition of being an uninvolved spectator it speaks eloquently about the condition of image overload in a media saturated culture” (Artchive, 1). This website has a distinct opinion about what Warhol’s work portrays and they also say that what some thought of as a humanizing touch was simply “routine error and entropy” since Warhol never bothered to touch up his work or correct his mistakes.

While there is no doubt that Andy Warhol gained fame with Campbell’s, what his artwork portrays is left to the individual. It is certain that he captured a Golden Age in America’s history, painting famous people that we still hear about today. As a contributor to the American Pop Art Movement, his eccentricity as a person contributed to the uniqueness of his work. Some people do not appreciate his work, but others believe him brilliant, whatever one’s opinion it is certain he had a profound impact on modern American art.

Works Cited:

Kinsman, Simon. "Soup Can Mania." Artonview (2007): 38-39. Wilson Web. 3 Apr. 2007 .
Andy Warhol. 2007. The Artchive. 3 Apr. 2007 .