Brillo Boxes

Andy Warhol was one of the most prolific and well-known artists of the late twentieth century. The son of first-generation Czechoslovakian immigrants, Warhol grew up in Pittsburgh, and moved to New York in 1949, where he found work in graphic design and began collecting and making art. He set up his own studio and worked with a large number of assistants. His fame increased markedly throughout the 1960s and '70s, until his death in 1987 after complications from gall bladder surgery.

The AMAM collection contains works in many media by the artist, including the Electric Chair and Mao Tse Tung print portfolios, an early shoe drawing, and iconic images of luminaries such as Marilyn Monroe, Liz Taylor, and Jackie Kennedy.

Brillo Boxes originated as part of Warhol's first sculptural project, produced with the help of assistants at his "Factory," and exhibited in 1964 at the Stable Gallery in New York in the exhibition The Personality of the Artist. The exhibition included replicas of commonplace supermarket products, such as Del Monte peaches, Campbell's tomato juice, and Heinz ketchup, in addition to Brillo Boxes, the only nonfood item depicted in the show. Warhol's re-creation of the distinctive packaging, at significantly increased scale and in multiples, is part of his hallmark combination of popular culture with a mechanistic approach to making art. His use of repetitive commercial processes (such as the serially reproduced silkscreen), hard outlines, and flat areas of color evoke the mass-production of everyday items. Through his choice of subject matter and technique, and his work with a large group of assistants, he challenged the importance of the hand of the artist and the "uniqueness" of a work of art.

The AMAM boxes were produced in 1970, six years after this initial showing, during the fabrication of boxes for an exhibition held at the Pasadena Art Museum. Oberlin's boxes were among a group of reserve boxes that were not exhibited at that time. The AMAM collection also contains over 150 photographs by the artist-both silver gelatin prints and Polaroids-that were a gift of the The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in 2008, as part of The Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Program.