Blog — Talking Adelaide

If you are into 20th century art, particularly the art movement called Pop Art, you can now pick up your very own limited-edition piece of Andy Warhol for just $1.99. But as they say in advertising, you better be quick.

Found this stack of hyper-coloured soup cans on the end of an aisle in my local Woolworths last Friday. Instead of the iconic red, white and gold label of Campbell’s condensed tomato soup, was this mash-up of purple, teal, pink and yellow that warranted a closer look.

The back labeling revealed this was a special series (discovered to be a limited run of a small 1.2 million) done by Campbell’s to mark the 50th anniversary of Warhol’s famous soup can painting series. Apparently the original ticket price in the States was just 99 cents US too. You do the maths.

The work 32 Campbell’s soup cans is in the wonderful Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), in New York. You can read about it here (see Warhol pictured in front of it below).

Not sure how these cans, which were made a year ago for the US market (the anniversary was in 2012) and distributed there with Target have ended up in suburban Adelaide – a little worse for wear, I might add. Still it was a bright moment on a dreary winter’s day.

Have you seen them in your supermarket?

Captions for above: (L-R) Anniversary details on the back of the can; They do look pretty all in rows; Andy Warhol in MoMA in front of his original work 32 Campbell's soup cans (Credit: whorange.net)