Irving Blum was the art dealer who first showed Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans at Ferus Gallery.
In May 1962, Blum visited Warhol’s studio and saw the developing series. He offered Warhol a solo exhibition at Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles, where 32 paintings—one for each Campbell’s soup variety then represented—went on display on 9 July 1962.
The canvases were arranged in a single row on narrow ledges, resembling products on a supermarket shelf. The exhibition initially baffled visitors, and only a few paintings sold. Blum eventually persuaded buyers to return their canvases and purchased the complete group himself for $1,000, preserving the series as a unified work.
Ivan Karp, Sidney Janis, and Leo Castelli were also important dealers in the development of Pop Art, but they were not the dealer responsible for this first Ferus presentation. The exhibition is now regarded as a landmark in the emergence of American Pop Art.