Campbell’s Soup Cans I: Green Pea 50 is a 1968 screenprint by Andy Warhol from his Campbell’s Soup Cans I portfolio. The print depicts a single can of Campbell’s Condensed Green Pea Soup with its familiar red, white, and gold label rendered in Warhol’s flat, graphic style. The bold typography, crisp edges, and metallic seal evoke the look of mass advertising while maintaining painterly precision. Through repetition and restraint, Warhol turned this ordinary supermarket item into a modern icon. Created eight years after his original 32 Campbell’s Soup Cans paintings, the work reflects his shift from hand-painting to screenprinting—a process that further blurred the line between art and commercial design.
From Hand-Painting to Mechanized Reproduction
With Campbell’s Soup Cans I: Green Pea 50, Warhol perfected his transition from painting to screenprinting. Earlier, he had hand-painted each of the thirty-two soup can flavors for his 1962 exhibition. In this later series, he used silk screens to reproduce the cans with near-photographic consistency. The precise lettering, the flat fields of red and white, and the uniform placement of the Campbell’s logo mimic commercial printing. However, small variations remind viewers that these are works of art, not mass-produced products. This duality—between sameness and individuality—became one of Warhol’s defining signatures. Moreover, this portfolio was among the first produced through Factory Additions, his print-publishing company that further mechanized his creative process.
Warhol later produced Campbell’s Soup Cans II in 1969, expanding the concept with additional flavors and illustrations. Together, these portfolios represent some of Warhol’s most recognizable and valuable screenprints. Green Pea 50 captures the essence of Warhol’s Pop Art revolution through bold color, commercial design, and mechanical precision.
Warhol’s Ongoing Fascination with Everyday Objects
When Green Pea 50 and the other soup cans debuted, audiences were shocked. Many questioned why reproductions of household goods appeared in an art gallery. At the time, Abstract Expressionism dominated the art world, emphasizing emotion, nature, and struggle. Consequently, Warhol’s works seemed deliberately commercial and detached. Critics debated their value, but the public found the imagery fresh, relatable, and unmistakably modern. The exhibition’s success propelled Warhol into fame and helped define Pop Art as a movement. In place of lofty subjects, he celebrated the products that filled supermarket shelves, asking what truly reflected modern life.
Warhol’s fascination with consumer goods went beyond visual repetition. It was a key concept in his artistic philosophy. His inspiration for this series came from his own kitchen, as he claimed to drink Campbell’s Soup almost every day for 20 years. He admired the equality of modern commerce—the idea that everyone, from movie stars to factory workers, consumed the same brands. His affection for mass-produced products such as Coca-Cola, Life Savers, and Campbell’s Soup revealed his belief that these items symbolized unity through consumption. As he famously said:
“You can be watching TV and see Coca Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A coke is a coke and no amount of money can get you a better coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the cokes are the same and all the cokes are good.”
Campbell’s Soup Cans I: Green Pea 50 as Part of Andy Warhol’s Larger Body of Work
Campbell’s Soup Cans I: Green Pea 50 reflects Warhol’s fascination with everyday life and industrial perfection. He believed that art should mirror modern existence, and for him, that meant embracing mass production and consumer culture. By presenting the soup can as art, he questioned traditional ideas of originality and authenticity.
Instead of focusing on “outdated” themes, Warhol’s Pop Art brought new life to the art world. He asked what was really authentic and relevant to human life, and at the time, the answer (for him) involved 20th century advancements like industry, commerce, and mass production. Thus, Warhol considered quotidian commodities like soup cans to be true reflections of society.
Moreover, his use of mechanical techniques democratized art, allowing it to mirror the accessible nature of its subject matter. The bold decision to elevate an ordinary object reshaped 20th-century art, inviting future generations to reconsider the meaning of creativity and value. Because of this, Green Pea 50 and its companion prints remain among the most acclaimed works in modern art history.
Photo Credits:
- Andy Warhol tracing Campbell’s Soup silkscreen, The Factory, New York City, circa 1965. © Estate of Nat Finkelstein. © 2021 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Licensed by DACS, London.
- Andy Warhol and Gerard Malanga make a painting, 1964. Vintage gelatin silver print, 10¼ × 14¾ inches; 26 × 38 cm. Photo by Matthew Marks.
- Andy Warhol, 1964. Vintage gelatin silver print, 10¼ × 14¾ inches; 26 × 38 cm. Photo by Matthew Marks.
