ANDY WARHOL | Brillo Soap Pads Box

Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles (acquired directly from the artist)
Collection of Arthur and Gloria Waldinger, Los Angeles (acquired from the above in 1978)
Private Collection, California (by descent from the above)
Christie's, New York, 11 November, 2010, lot 137
Acquired by the present owner from the above sale

Pasadena Art Museum, Andy Warhol, May - June 1970

Reflecting the artist’s background as a commercial illustrator, Andy Warhol’s early work often incorporates everyday products. The Campbell Soup cans and the Brillo Soap Pads boxes are by far the most famous, and as the sculptural equivalent to the important series of paintings, the Brillo boxes hold a key position in the artist’s early oeuvre. Unlike the paintings, which depict the soup cans as two-dimensional objects on a canvas, the Brillo box looks just like the original, and takes Warhol’s radical act of appropriation to its extreme. The sculptures were in fact so radical that the famed philosopher Arthur Danto, upon visiting the first exhibition in 1964, promptly declared the death of art since he could no longer distinguish between the actual product and the work of art.