Andy Warhol Loved This Canned Staple So Much, He Ate It Every Day For 20 Years

Andy Warhol, known by many as the Prince of Pop, was an odd man. He collected all manner of junk and was perpetually taking photos to document his daily life in New York. He was also a creature of habit and liked reliable foods that were simple in nature. One food that he loved was Campbell's soup.

If you know anything of Warhol's art, that's hardly a shocking revelation. The man painted cans and boxes of Campbell's soup right up to his dying day. But what many people don't know is that he also ate the stuff constantly. By his own account in 1963, "I used to drink it. I used to have the same lunch every day, for 20 years, I guess, the same thing over and over again" (via The Andy Warhol Museum). Considering he became very well-off, it may seem surprising that he clung to such a simple pleasure, but there was a personal reason for this.

Warhol grew up poor, and Campbell's soup was often the only meal they could afford. His mother, Julia Warhola, would serve it to him in childhood and then make cans into flowers. Her son continued to enjoy the soup as an adult, even as he became very wealthy. Warhola eventually moved into his Lexington Avenue home, where she would warm him some canned soup for lunch no matter how famous he became. He's in good company, too, as other celebrities, like Frank Sinatra, were fans of Campbell's soup.

Andy Warhol's arguably most famous work, titled Campbell's Soup Cans, came about in part because he always had them around. However, it took an outside perspective for him to see soup in an artistic light. While searching for inspiration, a friend named Muriel Latow suggested that Warhol pick a recognizable subject. Latow specifically mentioned Campbell's soup. He allegedly paid Latow $50 for the idea, and considering it made him millions, this was a serious bargain.

Shortly after that stroke of inspiration, Warhol bought every Campbell's soup that he could, including some discontinued Campbell's soups we wish would return. He then projected their images onto canvases and meticulously hand-painted each one, including the gold medal printed on every can of Campbell's soup, though he would later screen print some versions. The paintings were displayed on shelves, reminiscent of cans in supermarket aisles. This series quickly became an iconic symbol of pop art.

As far as the meaning, Warhol has given a few explanations over the years. "The reason I'm painting this way is that I want to be a machine," he once said, and he referred to the repetitive style as "an assembly-line effect" (via MoMA). "I was looking for something that was the essence of nothing," Warhol supposedly told a friend who asked about his decision to paint the soup cans (per Vanity Fair). In his view, it symbolized American society by showing a product that tasted the same whether it was eaten by someone rich or poor. To this day, people still leave cans of Campbell's soup on Warhol's grave.