In 1961, the Coca-Cola Company introduced a new design for its famous pinched-waist bottle. In this hand-painted image, Andy Warhol elevated the trademarked design to a scale approaching the size of a human body. One of four landmark paintings featuring a single Coca-Cola bottle Warhol made in 1961 and 1962, Coca-Cola [3] shows Warhol moving away from the splashy abstract painting then popular in New York. He chose instead to focus on the crisp, direct visual language of advertising.

The series was a breakthrough for Warhol, who began exploring the Campbell’s soup can as a subject around the same time. In his usage of imagery from consumer culture in his art, Warhol followed the lead of other artists represented in this gallery, including Robert Rauschenberg, who had introduced Coca-Cola bottles into his found-object sculptures in the late 1950s, and Jasper Johns, who deployed everyday images like flags, targets, and letters in his paintings.