Andy Warhol

Leo Castelli Gallery, New York (LC #951)
Galleria Sperone, Turin (acquired from the above in 1972)
Acquired by the present owner from the above in the mid 1970s

Georg Frei and Neil Printz, eds., The Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné: Paintings and Sculptures 1964-1969, Vol. 02A, New York, 2004, cat. no. 643, p. 72

This sculpture is in very good condition. As to be expected with the nature of the artist's method and choice of media, there are a number of indentations and very minute surface imperfections scattered to the box throughout, particularly along the corner edges. Close examination reveals a number of short rub marks scattered across the top surface; extremely thin hairline cracks and a number of minute pin-sized losses in places to the red and blue areas overall. There is a small area of rubbing to the corner-tip to the top-left of the logo on the top surface. There are a very small number of surface accretions and a 4½ inch semicircular thin line of brown residue towards the center of the logo on the top surface. No restoration is apparent under UV light.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Executed by Andy Warhol between March and April in 1964, Brillo Soap Pads Box is a paradigmatic example of a sculptural series that was one of the artist’s most ambitious undertakings of the period, and represents a motif that became absolutely synonymous with Warhol and the Pop Art movement in the first half of the 1960s. Indeed the Brillo Boxes became a central constituent of major exhibitions through the decade as an omnipresent totem of Pop, from Moderna Museet in Stockholm; the Stedelijk in Amsterdam; the Kunsthalle in Bern; Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo; the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; the Vancouver Art Gallery, and the Pasadena Art Museum. However, the present work belongs to the very inception of the series, which was first unveiled for Warhol’s second exhibition at the Stable Gallery between April and May 1964. The cycle of sculptures created for the Stable show precipitated new working methods in Warhol’s Factory, and moreover a wider reassessment of accepted traditions of artistic practice. As Georg Frei and Neil Printz have noted, “The Stable installation vividly demonstrates the radical character of the transformation in Warhol’s work at the beginning of 1964. Painted compositions cede at this time to serial accumulations of objects, whose quantity and likeness undermine conventional orders of number, composition, and visual distinction.” (Georg Frei and Neil Prinz, eds., The Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné: Paintings and Sculptures 1964-1969, Vol. 02A, New York, 2004, p. 55) Thus it is no exaggeration to describe the present work as the vestige of a key revolution that took place in modes of artistic creation with resounding and profoundly influential effects on wider perceptions of artistic authorship and indeed the very nature of the authentic art object.

The conceptual genesis for a box sculpture series was rooted in Warhol’s 1962 creation of a three-dimensional version of the Campbell’s Soup Can, and of course Brillo Soap Pads Box is the perfect continuation of Warhol’s appropriation of commercial products and advertising design. However, with this series his critical departure is to carry his conceptual project into three-dimensions, taking the wooden box constructed by a contracted cabinetmaker, painting it in white house paint and then silk-screening the red and blue layers on the top and four sides. The sculptural nature of the object brings Warhol’s provocative art of appropriation even closer to the Duchampian readymade prototype that cast such an important shadow. However, while Duchamp’s was purely an art of re-presentation of found objects, Warhol creates handmade counterparts in an alternative medium to the mass-produced packaging. In this respect Brillo Soap Pads Box drew greater inspiration from Jasper Johns’ groundbreaking sculpture Painted Bronze of 1960, where two bronze cylinders are painted to resemble Ballantine beer cans. Navigating the threshold between artistic creation and wholesale appropriation, Warhol’s Brillo Boxes and their widespread international exhibition provoked rapt attention and controversy at the time, which naturally only made their celebrity even more pronounced. The series, as epitomized by the present work, is recognized as a major chapter in the history of Pop Art and, viewed from our perspective today, the subsequent influence of the Brillo Boxes on movements such as Minimalism, where seriality and industrial manufacture became standard benchmarks of artistic practice, readily testifies to the true significance of this body of work.