To make this drawing, Warhol started by tracing the soup-can logo from a mailing envelope sent by the Campbell's Soup Company onto a sheet of paper. He likely enlarged that tracing in a projection, which he then traced again on this sheet. The thirty-two paintings that make up Campbells' Soup Cans are also based on the same soup-can logo. Warhol may have used pencil drawings like this one to increase the size of the projected image in stages, which helped to preserve the graphic clarity of the logo when it reached the larger scale of the canvases.

Gallery label from

Andy Warhol: Campbell's Soup Cans and Other Works, 1953–1967, April 25–October 18, 2015.

Medium Pencil on notebook paper
Dimensions 18 x 12" (45.8 x 30.5 cm)
Credit Purchased with funds provided by Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis
Object number 33.1999
Department Drawings and Prints

Explore more

Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol

American, 1928–1987 258 works online

Two exhibitions in 1962 announced Andy Warhol’s dramatic entry into the art world. In July, at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles, he exhibited his now-iconic Campbell’s Soup Cans .

Learn more →
All works by Andy Warhol →

From MoMA Design Store

Installation views

We have identified this work in the following photos from our exhibition history.

How we identified these works
In 2018–19, MoMA collaborated with Google Arts & Culture Lab on a project using machine learning to identify artworks in installation photos. That project has concluded, and works are now being identified by MoMA staff.

If you notice an error, please contact us at [email protected].
Licensing
To reproduce installation views, please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations). You will need to include the object identification number found in the caption.
Feedback
This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please send feedback to [email protected].

Licensing

Artwork or archival images

If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA's collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

Audio and film clips

MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit Circulating Film and Video Library.

Text from a publication or the archives

If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA's archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].

Feedback

This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please fill out this feedback form.