Lot #854: ANDY WARHOL - Campbell's Soup - Pepper Pot - Original color offset lithograph

     

Artist: Andy Warhol (American, 1928 - 1987).
Title: "Campbell's Soup - Pepper Pot [Ferus Gallery invitation/announcement]".
Medium: Original color offset lithograph.
Date: Composed 1962.
Dimensions: Overall size: 12 1/4 x 10 in. (311 x 254 mm). Image size: 8 7/8 x 5 1/16 in. (225 x 129 mm).
Lot Note(s): Signed in pencil, lower right. Edition unknown, presumed very small. Slightly textured white wove paper with serrated lower margin (as issued). Full margins. Fine, strong impression with bright colors. Good to very good condition: folds as issued for mailing; a few handling creases and spots, not in the image. Literature/catalogue raisonne: Paul Marechal, “Andy Warhol Ephemera…Catalogue Raisonne, 1950-1987.” Lyon, France: Les amis du Musee de l’Imprimerie, 2018 (unknown to Marechal, undoubtedly to be included in the forthcoming revised edition); cf. Feldman/Schellmann II.51. For an extensive coverage of the history and importance of this announcement and its exhibition, please see Kirk Varnedoe's essay 'Campbell's Soup Cans, 1962' in Gagosian Gallery's 'Ferus,' 2002, pp. 44-52. The announcement is illustrated, full page, full color, on pg. 42. The exhibition painting upon which the announcement is based is pictured on pg.129. Comment(s): A very rare object. “Gordon’s Print Prices” records only three sales from 1985 to 2019, all works unsigned, the most recent sale realizing $2,750 at Bonhams New York, 12/6/2106, lot #136. The importance of the Warhol exhibition at the Ferus Gallery and this related announcement cannot be overemphasized. Although the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian has a total of 32 different Irving Blum and Ferus Gallery announcements, it does not possess this announcement. As Wikipedia states in its article on the Campbell's Soup Cans, "Warhol…showed the work on July 9th, 1962 in his first one-man gallery exhibition as a fine artist in the Ferus Gallery of Los Angeles, California. The exhibition marked the West Coast debut of pop art." Note the differences in our poster and the related painting to the later, true to life, screenprints of the soup cans. As Varnedoe states,"…Warhol added one central, repeated note of expediently pure abstraction in the solid gold disk that utterly ignores the fine black printing actually found on this area of the real label." Image copyright © Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. TM Licensed by Campbell's Soup Co. All rights reserved. [26480-2-3000]