This skate deck is made of 7 ply grade A Canadian maple wood. Top-print includes the official Andy Warhol brand logo.
Skateboard art edition under license.
©/®/™ The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
Andy Warhol’s Colored Campbell’s Soup Cans series, created in 1965, consists of 32 canvases, each depicting the iconic Campbell’s Tomato Soup can. Originally, none of the individual works had their own title; they were only referenced by the variety of soup they represented. However, over time, each piece received a popular title based on its color composition, such as “Eggplant,” “Lemon,” or “Blueberry,” which further distanced the artwork from the everyday object and its original function.
These informal titles highlight the significance of color as a conceptual element. While the can remains recognizable, the unexpected colors alter perception, directing the viewer’s attention to aesthetic impact and visual experience rather than the object’s function. In this way, Warhol not only plays with repetition and familiarity but also transforms a banal product into an ambiguous symbol, inviting reflection on the relationship between appearance and meaning.
From a critical perspective, this approach shows how perception can change even when the textual content remains the same. The series reflects Warhol’s fascination with consumer culture and advertising, where colors are used to evoke emotions, create associations, and influence the way a product is perceived. Each color variation, with its informal title, acts as a playful and ironic commentary on the interplay between form, color, and message, demonstrating that imagery can influence perception even more than text.
Thus, the Colored Campbell’s Soup Cans series becomes far more than an aesthetic exercise: it is a reflection on how visual signs function in society, on the ambiguity between appearance and reality, and on the power of color to shape perception and expectation. Even in an everyday object, Warhol demonstrates that art can be playful, critical, and deeply aware of the consumer culture in which it exists.
