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ANDY WARHOL |
Display the transparency of 100 Cans. Divide your children into groups and give each group a can of soup. How are today’s cans different from Andy Warhol’s painted cans of 1962? How are they the same? If they don’t notice, point out the small yellow circles used to represent the Campbell’s medallion. Why do you think the artist did that? Why did he cut off the bottom of the cans in the last row? Remember that there are no right or wrong answers to these questions.
In the 1950s and 1960s, brand labels were becoming potent advertising symbols with the advent of billboards and television. Andy Warhol explained why he chose to portray Campbell’s soup: “I
used to drink it. I used to have the same lunch everyday for twenty years.” Ask the students about brands. How many brands of shoes can they name? Soft drinks? Soup? Can they identify a certain
look or idea attached to a brand name? A symbol? A slogan or jingle that comes to mind? (For example, “Mmmm good, mmm good, that’s what Campbell’s soup is, mmmm good.”) What’s
the difference between brands of shoes – Nike and Adidas for instance? Between different brands of soft drinks – Pepsi and Coke for example? Between brands of soup?
100 Cans comprises rows of cans placed in straight lines. If you imagine dividing the painting in half to show five cans on either side, each side is exactly the same. This means that the painting is symmetrical. With your students, look at the transparency of Child’s Blue Wall, which comes with one of the other lesson plans. If you draw an imaginary line through the middle of that painting, are the two sides exactly the same? No! The lamp and the light switch cause one half to be different from the other. This is an example of a picture that is asymmetrical, not symmetrical. Have your students practice finding symmetrical and asymmetrical pictures.
Math Related Concepts
Use 9 black-and-white photocopies of 100 Cans. Cut one into 100 single cans, one into pairs of cans, one into groups of four cans, one into groups of five cans, one into groups of 10 cans, one
into groups of 20 cans, one into groups of 25 cans, one into groups of 50 cans, and leave one whole. For each of the cases, ask the students to practice their multiplication tables by using the
cans to get to 100. Can you think of other math concepts they can learn from this exercise? Can they learn infinity by guessing how long the stack of cans continues at the bottom of the painting?
OR
Photocopy the Student Activity Sheet in black-and-white and have your students color it. Ask students to cut the photocopy into a number of pieces, keeping the cans whole (except for the bottom
row, of course). Have your students work individually or in groups to put the pieces together. (You may keep the transparency up to help them.) Ask if they can write a mathematical equation that
illustrates how their puzzle represents the number 100. It will help if they write the number of cans on the back of each puzzle piece, then turn them over to write an equation.
Art Related Concepts
Find a simple commercial object and have your children sketch it on paper the size of an index card (3x5”). A soft drink can, any food that comes in a can, or a carton
is a good choice. Otherwise, using one can from 100 Cans as a model, students could invent their own food label. Photocopy each sketch multiple times, have students cut out the multiples, paste them
on a larger sheet of paper, and paint or color their compositions. Explain that in art, when we use the same image over and over, it is called a multiple. Look at all the works of art. Have students
divide the class’s
artwork into two categories: artwork that is symmetrical and artwork that is asymmetrical. Are some artworks harder to categorize? Have students give arguments about why they feel an artwork is symmetrical
or asymmetrical. Do they need a third category?
Color your copy of 100 Cans by Andy Warhol and then cut it up, making sure to keep the cans whole. You should cut it into at least three pieces. Count the number of cans on each piece, write that number on the back of the piece, and bring your pieces to class.
Andy Warhol was born Andy Warhola in 1928 in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in 1949 at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh and left immediately for New York City to start work as a commercial artist. He was very successful, won many awards, and worked for a variety of companies including Glamour magazine, Bergdorf Goodman, Vogue, and Columbia Records. In New York, he met other young artists working commercially who eventually were identified as practitioners of Pop art, named for the incorporation of elements of popular culture. Warhol and other visual artists first discovered they were all working in the same vein at a 1962 exhibition called The New Realists. It was then, for the first time, that Pop was recognized as a style or movement in American art. Eventually Warhol became our most celebrated American Pop artist.
Pop artists used consumer products, advertising, and popular culture icons as the major source for subject matter in their art. Warhol eventually produced artwork in many media, including painting, photography, printmaking, and film. His advertising background contributed to his use of harsh colors and simplified shapes commonly found in labels and publicity photos, which he used to powerful effect in many of his series of paintings and prints. For example, the still photograph of Marilyn Monroe that was the basis for one of his most famous series of works was a publicity shot for the actress’s 1962 movie Niagara – the year she committed suicide. He was fascinated by the idea of celebrity and is often quoted in his prediction that mass media would enable everyone to become famous for at least fifteen minutes. Warhol’s fame stemmed as much from his lifestyle as it did from his art.
Between 1962 and 1967 Warhol painted soup cans, both individually and in groups. The Gallery’s work titled 100 Cans is one of the last images he painted by hand before turning to silkscreen printing methods. Pencil lines are visible under the paint and the last row of cans at the bottom is cut off, suggesting endless stacks of cans. If you look closely, you will discover that each can is subtly different.
Warhol got the idea for another series he called Death and Disaster - that included photographic images of car crashes, atomic explosions, and electric chairs - from the June 4, 1962 issue of the Daily News that a friend put on the table at lunch one day. The headline read, “129 Die in Jet.” Ironically, six years later to the day, June 4, 1968, Warhol was shot by a deranged New York artist and made the headlines himself – “Artist Shot.” The shooter was a woman who had been featured in one of his films. Six months prior to the shooting, she had formed a group with the acronym SCUM – Society for Cutting Up Men.
After his first big shows in the early 1960s, Warhol opened a mass production studio called The Factory, where his many friends helped silkscreen his work. He made films such as Sleep, an eight-hour film of someone sleeping, which, like much of his work, addresses the question: where does one draw the line between life and art? The two commingle in Warhol’s work so much that they cannot be separated.
The Gallery has several more works by Andy Warhol, including portraits of Chinese dictator Mao Tse Tung and a portrait of Seymour Knox, President of the Board of Directors of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery from 1938-1977 and Chairman from 1977-1984. Mr. Knox donated over 650 works to the collection, including 100 Cans, one year after it was painted.
This lesson plan satisfies Standards 1, 3, 4 in Language Art, Standards 1, 3, 6, 7 in Math, Science and Technology, and Standards 1 – 4 in the Visual Arts (including the museum visit), written by The NYS Education Department.