Provenance
The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc., New York
Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York
Christie's New York, 'Post-War and Contemporary Morning Session', 11 November 2010, lot 115
Acquired from the above sale by the present owner
Exhibited
Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, Duchamp’s Leg, 5 November 1994 – 26 March 1995
Literature
G. Frei and N. Printz, eds., The Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings and Sculptures, 1964-1969, vol. 2A, New York, 2004, p. 96, no. 894
Catalogue Essay
"I never think that people die. They just go to department stores.” Andy Warhol
"But why should I be original? Why can’t I be non-original?” Andy Warhol

Tomato Juice Box, 1964, featured in Andy Warhol’s first exhibition with the celebrated American art dealer Leo Castelli. It is a quintessential example of the artist’s witty engagement with political, artistic and social systems, and of Warhol’s unerring ability to turn the assembly line into an artistic and aesthetic punch line. Warhol assimilates the familiar Campbell’s branding into his own body of work, and makes startling parallels between low culture and high art, as well as demonstrating a sharp entrepreneurial eye.

Tomato Juice Box is a development of Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans paintings of 1962, and was made at a point when he was moving from 2-D to 3-D installations, removing sculpture from the plinth in a similar way other artists such as Anthony Caro were also exploring. As well as appropriating Campbell’s tomato juice and soup containers, Warhol also recreated the packaging of other household names such as Brillo, Del Monte and Heinz. In doing so, he raised a series of critical conundrums: “How is it possible for something to be a work of art when something else, which resembles it to whatever degree of exactitude, is merely a thing, or an artefact, but not an artwork? Why is Brillo Box an artwork when the Brillo cartons in the warehouse are merely soap-pad containers?” (A.C. Danto, ‘Andy Warhol: Brillo Box’, Art Forum, New York, 1993).

The work was in tune with the times. By 1964, a decade of American social activism had resulted in political reforms which would previously have been considered unthinkable. Marginalised groups had collectively mobilised change, with individual acts such as Rosa Parks’s instigation of the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955 leading to the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed many forms of racial and social discrimination. Visually, then, Warhol’s work can be seen as a summation of the recently realised power of the individual, framed by an American collective spirit.

At this time, Warhol was curating and popularising an underground scene at his New York studio, the Factory, with works that not only spoke to the public, but also connected him to art-historical themes such as the notion of individual genius. Indeed, the famous Factory, founded in 1963, can be seen as an updated version of the Renaissance workshops while almost mocking modern industrial systems. But despite creating direct and pointed statements about the mechanisation of production and the rise of capitalist consumption, Warhol’s work is also visually stimulating and appealing. It combines deep pleasure in the graphic with compelling conceptual complexity. By duplicating banal objects, Warhol fuses popular culture with modern art, a powerful mixture which profoundly changed the concept of art and the artist.

In his own way, Warhol pays homage to Marcel Duchamp, who isolated seemingly quotidian objects and remade them anew in the context of the gallery. Warhol’s appropriations likewise collapsed the structures of a hierarchical art system, whose institutions continually interrogate the cultural worth of individual artists. In an astute twist, Warhol subsumed a famous commercial brand into his own artistic legacy – and as a result Campbell’s soup is nowadays more associated with Warhol’s name than with that of Joseph A Campbell.
Artist Biography
Andy Warhol
American • 1928 - 1987
Andy Warhol was the leading exponent of the Pop Art movement in the U.S. in the 1960s. Following an early career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol achieved fame with his revolutionary series of silkscreened prints and paintings of familiar objects, such as Campbell's soup tins, and celebrities, such as Marilyn Monroe. Obsessed with popular culture, celebrity and advertising, Warhol created his slick, seemingly mass-produced images of everyday subject matter from his famed Factory studio in New York City. His use of mechanical methods of reproduction, notably the commercial technique of silk screening, wholly revolutionized art-making.
Working as an artist, but also director and producer, Warhol produced a number of avant-garde films in addition to managing the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground and founding Interview magazine. A central figure in the New York art scene until his untimely death in 1987, Warhol was notably also a mentor to such artists as Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

View More Works

10

Andy Warhol

Tomato Juice Box

1964
silkscreen ink and house paint on plywood
25.4 x 48.3 x 25.1 cm (10 x 19 x 9 7/8 in)
Stamped with the Estate of Andy Warhol and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and numbered 'SC12.035' on the underside.

Estimate
£200,000 - 300,000 ‡

Sold for £223,250

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

14 February 2013
London

1
Nate Lowman
Green Escalade
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000
Sold for £337,250
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
2
Rob Pruitt
Power of the Panda (Happy Alone)
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000 †
Sold for £115,250
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
3
Dan Colen
A Slip of the Tongue
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ‡
Sold for £133,250
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
4
Mark Grotjahn
Untitled (Black and Canary Yellow Butterfly) #699
Estimate £250,000 - 350,000 ‡
Sold for £457,250
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
5
Rashid Johnson
Write me In
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000 ‡
Sold for £85,250
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
6
Donald Judd
Untitled (91-149 Menziken)
Estimate £250,000 - 350,000
Sold for £337,250
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
7
Christopher Wool
Untitled (P271)
Estimate £1,300,000 - 1,800,000 ‡
Sold for £1,665,250
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
8
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (Look and listen)
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000
Sold for £253,250
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
9
Andy Warhol
Brillo Soap Pads Box
Estimate £600,000 - 800,000 ‡
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
10
Andy Warhol
Tomato Juice Box
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 ‡
Sold for £223,250
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
11
Andy Warhol
Hammer and Sickle
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 ‡
Sold for £247,250
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
12
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Untitled
Estimate £1,800,000 - 2,500,000 ‡
Sold for £1,945,250
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
13
Andy Warhol
Beatle Boots (Negative)
Estimate £550,000 - 650,000 ‡
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
14
Jean-Michel Basquiat
For B.A.M.
Estimate £1,200,000 - 1,800,000 ‡
Sold for £763,830
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
15
Banksy
Bomb Middle England
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ♠
Sold for £229,250
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
16
Jonathan Wateridge
Jungle River Landscape with Plane Wreck
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ♠
Sold for £109,250
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
17
Albert Oehlen
Student II
Estimate £150,000 - 250,000 ‡♠
Sold for £169,250
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
18
Jean Dubuffet
Le Chien Rodeur
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000 ‡♠
Sold for £325,250
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
19
Cecily Brown
East of Eden
Estimate £600,000 - 800,000 ‡♠
Sold for £724,450
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
20
Damien Hirst
Untitled 2 (Spot Painting)
Estimate £300,000 - 500,000 ‡♠
Sold for £295,250
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
21
Marc Quinn
Frozen Head
Estimate £600,000 - 800,000 ‡♠
Sold for £713,250
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
22
This lot is no longer available.
23
Rosemarie Trockel
Waterfall
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 ♠
Sold for £361,250
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
24
Richard Prince
What Can You Do?
Estimate £300,000 - 500,000 ‡
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
25
Elizabeth Peyton
Dr. Scarpinato (Vincent)
Estimate £120,000 - 180,000 ‡
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
26
George Condo
Untitled (Choo Choo)
Estimate £350,000 - 450,000 ‡
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
27
Cindy Sherman
Untitled #469
Estimate £180,000 - 220,000 ‡
Sold for £205,250
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
28
The Bruce High Quality Foundation
Las Meninas
Estimate £150,000 - 250,000 ‡
Sold for £181,250
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
29
Thomas Houseago
Caryatide with Squatting Man
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000 ♠†
Sold for £73,250
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
30
Rudolf Stingel
Untitled
Estimate £50,000 - 70,000 ‡♠
Sold for £79,250
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
31
Ryan Sullivan
July 24, 2011 - September 28, 2011
Estimate £30,000 - 40,000
Sold for £91,250
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
32
Mark Tansey
Study for the Valley of Doubt
Estimate £250,000 - 350,000 ‡
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
33
Yan Pei-Ming
Invisible Man no. 1
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 ‡♠
Sold for £163,250
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
34
Isa Genzken
Empire/Vampire
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000 ♠
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
35
Sterling Ruby
Monument Stalagmite/Headbanger
Estimate £70,000 - 100,000 †
Sold for £85,250
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
36
Marc Quinn
Careless Desire
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ♠
Sold for £157,250
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

14 February 2013 London

Create your first list.

Provenance

Exhibited

Literature

Catalogue Essay

Artist Biography

Andy Warhol

10

Andy Warhol

Tomato Juice Box

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

14 February 2013
London