Campbell's Soup by Andy Warhol

(The New York Times, 24 January 1962)

Campbell’s Soup is drawing rave reviews from the world’s art critics, who hail the soup maker’s new “Tomato” soup “a brilliant post-modern commentary on the pervasiveness of consumerism in modern life”.

Art dealers from New York to Paris are bidding astronomical sums for the 12-ounce cans, normally priced at 33 cents. This week, a can at a Manhattan grocery store fetched $100,000.

According to New York art collector Bruno Waldstein, who paid $76,000 for a can at Sal’s Corner Grocery in Queens Friday: “This soup savagely lampoons the unwelcome, insidious intrusion of crass commercialism into our lives and modern popular culture. This is Campbell’s greatest work since Cream of Mushroom.”

The art originates from a small collective of artists calling themselves “The Campbell’s Canning Factory” in Gary, Indiana.

Campbell’s Soup CEO Herbert Leonard, 53, said he is mystified by the success of the can. “It’s just fucking soup,” he said.

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