Brillo Boxes
1969 version of 1964 original
Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Not on View

Andy Warhol was one of the most important figures in the first generation of Pop artists. Born in Pittsburgh, he studied commercial art at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. After graduating, he moved to New York to pursue magazine illustration and advertising. His talents put him in high demand among advertising firms and publications. Soon he discovered the world of fine art, where his aptitude and eye for design translated well. The marriage of these two realms resulted in Warhol’s consummate trademark style, with the artist often taking a “hands-off” approach at his art “Factory” by having silkscreens produced under his direction.

Here, the multitude of boxes alludes to the abundance of seriality, as though more exist outside of this gallery. In fact, these Brillo Boxes are 1969 replicas of versions made in 1964. One hundred Brillo Boxes were fabricated by Warhol specifically for the 1970 exhibition that inaugurated the newly built Pasadena Art Museum at Orange Grove and Colorado Boulevards, which five years later became the Norton Simon Museum.

Both modular and as a whole, these boxes appear to contribute to a larger continuum. Warhol selected an object that already existed as a manufactured multiple—a case of Brillo-brand soap pads—and continued to add to the scale of their production by producing his own soap pad cases while the Brillo company was simultaneously manufacturing theirs.

Details

  • Artist Name: Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
  • Title: Brillo Boxes
  • Date: 1969 version of 1964 original
  • Medium: Acrylic silkscreen on wood
  • Dimensions: Each box: 20 x 20 x 17 in. (50.8 x 50.8 x 43.2 cm)
  • Credit Line: Norton Simon Museum, Gift of the Artist
  • Accession Number: P.1969.144.001-100
  • Copyright: © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Object Information

Andy Warhol, gift 1969 to;
Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena, 1969-1975;
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena.

Selections from the Permanent Collection

  • Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, 1996-12-08 to 1999-04-04

Permanent Collection Installation

  • Pasadena Art Museum, 1972-05-24 to 1972-09-10

Permanent Collection Installation

  • Pasadena, Pasadena Art Museum, 1975-03-10 to 1975-06-15

Permanent Collection Installation

  • Norton Simon Museum, 1988-05-26 to 1988-08-14

Pop Art 1955-1970

  • Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1985-02-26 to 1985-04-14
  • Queensland Art Gallery, 1985-05-01 to 1985-06-06
  • National Gallery of Victoria, 1985-06-26 to 1985-08-11

Permanent Collection Installation

  • Norton Simon Museum, 1978-10-26 to 1979-02-01

Idea and Image in Recent Art

  • Art Institute of Chicago, 1974-03-23 to 1974-05-05

Andy Warhol Retrospective

  • Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin, 2001-10-16 to 2002-01-06
  • London, Tate Modern, 2002-02-07 to 2002-04-01
  • Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles, Calif.), 2002-05-25 to 2002-08-18

Andy Warhol

  • Pasadena Art Museum, 1970-05-11 to 1970-06-21
  • Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago, Ill.), 1970-07-04 to 1970-09-06
  • Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, 1970-10-09 to 1970-11-22
  • Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris, 1970-12-10 to 1971-01-23
  • Tate Gallery, 1971-02-17 to 1971-03-28
  • Whitney Museum of American Art, 1971-04-26 to 1971-06-20

Global Village: The 60s

  • Montreal, The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 2003-10-02 to 2004-03-07

Dia's Andy: Through the Lens of Patronage

  • Dia:Beacon, Riggio Galleries, 2005-05-15 to 2006-04-10

Warhol Live

  • The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 2008-09-25 to 2009-01-18
  • Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young Museum, 2009-02-14 to 2009-05-17

America As Art

  • Washington, D. C., National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, 1976-04-30 to 1976-10-03

Andy Warhol - From A to B and Back Again

  • Whitney Museum of American Art, 2018-11-12 to 2019-03-31
  • San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2019-05-18 to 2019-09-02
  • Art Institute of Chicago, 2019-10-20 to 2020-01-26

Floorworks

  • Los Angeles, The Temporary Contemporary, 1989-09-16 to 1990-02-18

Pop Art: US/UK Connections 1956-66

  • Houston, The Menil Collection, 2001-01-26 to 2001-05-13

The American Century: Art and Culture 1900-2000

  • Whitney Museum of American Art, 1999-09-26 to 2000-02-27

3 Pop Artists

  • University of California, Riverside, 1972-02-01 to 1972-02-27

The Great American Pop Art Store: Multiples of the Sixties

  • California State University, Long Beach. University Art Museum, 1997-08-26 to 1997-10-27
  • Zimmerli Art Museum, 1997-11-22 to 1998-02-22
  • Baltimore Museum of Art, 1998-03-25 to 1998-05-31
  • Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, 1998-06-27 to 1998-08-23
  • Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, 1998-09-18 to 1998-12-11
  • Marion Koogler McNay Art Institute, 1999-01-18 to 1999-03-14
  • Wichita Art Museum, 1999-04-11 to 1999-06-06
  • Joslyn Art Museum, 1999-10-23 to 2000-01-09
  • Lowe Art Museum, 2000-02-03 to 2000-03-26
  • Toledo Museum of Art, 2000-06-04 to 2000-08-13

Inaugural Exhibition / Extended Loan

  • Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, 1999-01-18 to 2004-05-30

Timepieces

  • Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles, Calif.), 1998-04-13 to 1999-02-21

Images of an Era

  • Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles, Calif.), 1996-07-10 to 1997-06-29

Duchamp's Leg

  • Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, 1994-11-04 to 1995-02-26
  • Miami, Center for the Fine Arts, 1995-12-03 to 1996-03-03

Selections from the Permanent Collection and the Norton Simon Museum

  • Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles, Calif.), 1989-02-05 to 1989-05-28

American Art Since 1950 from the Norton Simon Museum

  • Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles, Calif.), 1990-06-30 to 1990-09-09

A Look at New York

  • Pasadena Museum of Modern Art, 1973-06-12 to 1973-07-22

Duchamp to Pop

  • Norton Simon Museum, 2016-03-04 to 2016-08-29

46 N. Los Robles: A History of The Pasadena Art Museum

  • USC Pacific Asia Museum, 2011-11-17 to 2012-04-08

Permanent and Loan Collection, 1973

  • Pasadena Museum of Modern Art, 1973-01-30 to 1973-12-31

Printmaking in the Sixties: Interpretations of Common Objects

  • Norton Simon Museum, 1988-05-26 to 1988-08-14

American Art of the 1950s and 1960s from the Collection of the Norton Simon Museum

  • Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1988-08-11 to 1994-04-03

American Art of the 1960s from the Norton Simon Museum

  • Los Angeles, The Temporary Contemporary, 1990-03-13 to 1990-06-13
  • Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles, Calif.), 1988-10-04 to 1989-02-05

Pop Culture!

  • Norton Simon Museum, 2001-11-16 to 2002-02-11

Radical Past: Contemporary Art and Music in Pasadena, 1960-1974

  • Norton Simon Museum, 1999-02-07 to 1999-06-06
  • Armory Center for the Arts, 1999-02-07 to 1999-04-11
  • Art Center College of Design (Pasadena, Calif.), 1999-02-07 to 1999-04-25
  • The Contemporary, p. 14
  • Craft, Catherine, The Burlington Magazine, p. 250
  • The Contemporary, p. 3
  • Coplans, John, Serial Imagery, 1968, p. 130
  • The Tate Gallery, Warhol, 1971, p. 85
  • 3 Pop Artists, 1972,
  • Art Gallery of New South Wales, Pop Art: 1955-1970, 1985, p. 94
  • Armory Center for the Arts/Art Center College of Design, Radical Past: Contemporary Art & Music in Pasadena, 1960-1974, 1999, p. 86
  • Pop Art: U.S./U.K. Connections 1956-1966, 2001, no. 34 p. 178
  • Bastian, Heiner, Andy Warhol Retrospektive, 2001, fig. 162 pp. 32, 220 - 221
  • Bastain, Heiner, Andy Warhol Retrospective, 2001, fig. 162 pp. 32, 220 - 221
  • Bastian, Heiner, Retrospective Andy Warhol, 2001, fig. 162 pp. 218, 220-221, 311
  • Global Village: The 60s, 2003, fig. 2 (detail), no. 215 pp. 70-70, 88
  • Horlock, Mary, Modern Artists - Julian Opie, 2004, p. 9, fig. [4]
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