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he Cheddar Cheese soup can is one of ten prints from the “Campbell’s Soup II” portfolio. This portfolio comes from Warhol’s 32 Campbell’s Soup can paintings that he produced in 1962. The paintings represented all 32 varieties of soup sold then. The ten he chose for the Campbell’s Soup II portfolio all have unique design elements and are more unusual flavors. Rather than the traditional Tomato soup, or Green Pea and Chicken Noodle, the second portfolio features Oyster Stew, Scotch Broth and Hot Dog Bean. The Cheddar Cheese can features a yellow banner through the seal that reminds customers that it is also “great as a sauce, too!”
Repeating an image over and over again is something that can be found frequently in Warhol’s work. One of the main reasons for this is because he felt that serial repetition drained an image of its meaning. This interpretation becomes increasingly important in a portfolio such as the Disaster series. Also, the use of everyday objects is not something new. Warhol had worked with Coca-Cola bottles and dollar bills and was continuously interested in objects of mass consumption and American society with them. Warhol continued to work with the Campbell’s soup cans, altering and contorting them, but these classic cans remain the most popular and sought after by collectors. While Warhol is mostly associated as a New York artist, he did have a connection to the California artists in the early-60s. The original 32 Campbell’s Soup paintings were shown at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles.
