Andy Warhol – Campbell’s Soup Cans II: Vegetarian Vegetable (FS II.56)

Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Can series isn’t just art – it’s a piece of cultural history, Andy Warhol’s legacy and art history itself. This series remains one of the most sought-after in the art market.

Andy Warhol originally created the imagery in 1962 as a series of paintings, for his seminal exhibition at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles that launched his career. The artist told interviewers that the idea came about because he spent 20 years eating a tin of Campbell’s Tomato soup everyday for lunch, before he was able to afford the cost of dining out.

“I used to drink it [Campbell’s Soup]. I used to have the same lunch every day, for twenty years, I guess, the same thing over and over again.”

In 1996 he sold the entire set of paintings for a reported $15 million to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where they can still be seen on display today. Single canvases from the wider Campbell’s Soup painting series – which can reach anything from $4 million to $9million at auction – can be found in public collections all over the world.

The Soup Can sets remained Andy Warhol’s favourites of all that he produced throughout his career.

Campbell’s Soup Can Sets

After Warhol hand-painted the Campbell’s Soup Cans in 1962, he began experimenting more heavily with screenprinting as his signature technique. It was screenprinting that was central to his artistic practice and was his preferred medium of artistic creation – the development of screenprinting changed everything.

He released the first set of ten in 1968, and the second set of ten in 1969. Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans II: Vegetarian Vegetable 56, (1969) is from the artist’s Campbell’s Soup Cans II portfolio, in 1969. The new collection has the same trademark design but with the addition of Warhol’s new graphics – they add a small flare to his original design and represent the final development of his original soup can paintings.

Campbell’s Soup Can II are all real flavours of Campbell’s Soup.

Why Are the Soup Cans Art Historically Important?

Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans are one of the most iconic Art images of the 20th Century. They’re infamous.
By elevating a mundane, mass-produced product to the status of fine art, Warhol challenged the traditional boundaries between high art and commercialism.

Campbell’s Soup Cans helped to define and launch the Pop Art movement.

Warhol’s use of silkscreen printing was revolutionary. The soup cans shifted the focus from painting to printmaking, a medium championed previously by Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall, but really truly defined by Andy Warhol.

Art Market – Why are the Soup Cans an Investment?

The average annual growth rate of Alphabet Soup is 5% (5 Years AAGR). Art Basel & UBS Art Market Report released on 9th April confirmed that whilst global sales fell 4% this was not true for Prints & Multiples. Prints are up 2% from last year. Pop Art Market is resilient in the auction results: with sales increasing by 34.8% in 2024. (Arttactic Year in Review Report Dec 2024). Andy Warhol was the No. 1 Post War Artist at Auction in 2024. Art Basel & UBS Art Market Report confirms that sales in Contemporary Art are down, as collectors and investors turn to recognisable and established names.