This was photographed and color-corrected by Pat Cagney.

Turkey Shopping Bag

Artist Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923 - 1997)

Date1964

MediumScreenprint on paper shopping bag with handles

DimensionsOverall: 19 9/16 x 16 3/4 x 6 in. (49.7 x 42.5 x 15.2 cm)
Overall, Image: 7 1/2 x 8 1/2 in. (19.1 x 21.6 cm)

ClassificationsModern art

Credit LineGift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.

Object number0.3247

Terms

Turkey
Black
Yellow
Pop art

On View

Not on view

DescriptionThis is a silk screen on a paper shopping bag of a roasted turkey on a dish. The bag is cream colored. The turkey is yellow, which is the same color as the exterior of the dish. The legs of the turkey point to the left. The edge of the dish is a cream color, or negative space, outlined in black with squares similar to scalloping. The dish is on a table. The wall provides a gray background with paneling outlined in black.

Label TextAndy Warhol American (1928-1987) Campbell's Soup Can Shopping Bag, 1964 Roy Lichtenstein American (1923-1997) Turkey Shopping Bag, 1964 Screenprints on paper shopping bags with handles Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. 0.3246 and 0.3247, respectively The ultimate Pop artists, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein made liberal use of the "throw-away" imagery of urban mass culture-as encountered in newspapers, comics, magazines, movies, and television-to transform the American art world of the 1960s. Warhol presented his revolutionary depictions of soup cans and film stars in a flat, machine-like style that seemed to obliterate all signs of his own hand and personality. Lichtenstein found inspiration in the Pop aesthetic of comic strips, elevating their flat colors, strong graphics, and dot screens to the realm of high art. Warhol's Campbell Soup Can Shopping Bag and Lichtenstein's Turkey Shopping Bag were made in connection with a remarkable Pop exhibition, American Supermarket, mounted in 1964 at the Bianchini Gallery in New York. The exhibition was installed to look like an actual supermarket, with aisles, stocked shelves, and a checkout counter where the art on view could be purchased. (Items on display mixed actual food with food-related Pop paintings and sculptures for sale.) The shopping bags were intended as posters for the show, though many visitors, caught up in the witty concept of art as mass consumer experience, used them as actual shopping bags to carry out their art purchases. Unused bags like the two here are quite rare. More than likely, the Museum's pair were picked up from the exhibition by Walter or Jean Chrysler and carefully saved for posterity. Warhol's bag was his first editioned version of his famous Campbell Soup can image. It was issued in an edition of approximately 200 and sold, like Lichtenstein's bag, for $12 apiece.