At the time of his death in 1987, Andy Warhol was the most famous artist in America. But in the 1950s and early ’60s, he was best known as a commercial illustrator and had yet to make his mark in the art world. That all changed in 1962 when he painted his iconic Campbell’s Soup Cans—thirty two nearly identical canvases, one for each soup flavor the Campbell Soup Company then sold. With his irreverent marriage of mass-culture imagery and machinelike repetition at the altar of high art, Warhol would be propelled to the fore of a new artistic movement soon to be known as Pop. Ultimately an ironist, he celebrated postwar America’s ascendant consumer culture while at the same time exposing its banality, monotony, and excess. Curator Starr Figura explores this pivotal moment in Warhol’s career and his profound impact on contemporary art.

 

Each volume in the One on One series is a sustained meditation of a single work from the collection of The Museum of Modern Art. A richly illustrated and lively essay illuminates the subject in detail and situates that work within the artist’s life and career as well as within broader historical contexts. This series is an invaluable guide for exploring and interpreting some of the most beloved artworks in the Museum’s collection. View the entire series here.