Cheddar Cheese is one of ten screenprints in his 1969 Campbell’s Soup Cans II portfolio, where each print showcases a different Campbell’s soup flavour, rendered so lifelike that it almost seems edible.
Warhol transformed the supermarket into his artistic playground, turning the mundane shelves of Campbell’s soup cans into his muse. He saw beauty in the overlooked objects of American life and sought to elevate them to the status of “high art.” Warhol questioned why something as integral to American culture as Campbell’s soup couldn’t also be part of the cultural conversation within the art world. Pop Art, the movement Warhol helped define, embraced these everyday elements of American life, creating art that was instantly recognizable to everyone.
Through this series, Warhol forever changed the cultural landscape, playfully challenging the elitist nature of the art world. He placed consumer culture at the centre of the “American experience,” not to critique it, but to express his fascination with it.