Bianchini Gallery presents the grand opening of the American Supermarket

Bianchini Gallery

Bianchini Gallery presents the grand opening of the American Supermarket

New York City, USA: Bianchini Gallery, 1964

[2] pp., 43 x 55.7 cm., folded double sided exhibition poster

Edition size unknown

Sixty-one years ago today the groundbreaking American Supermarket exhibition opened at the Paul Bianchini Gallery on East 78th Street, New York. Curated by artist and collector Ben Birillo, the exhibition is thought to have effectively launched the genre of Pop Art, catapulting many of the artists involved to international fame: Billy Apple, Richard Artschwager, Mary Inman, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist, Andy Warhol, Robert Watts, and Tom Wesselmann.

Each produced works that could be displayed in a supermarket setting, alongside plastic replicas of food. Warhol and Lichtenstein created twelve dollar silkscreened paper shopping bags, of a Campbell’s tomato soup can and turkey, respectively. Mary Inman contributed life-like wax replicas of meats and cheeses. Bob Watts produced egg cartons, Jasper Johns exhibited his 1960 Ale Cans, and Wesselmann contributed a plastic turkey. A turnstile by Artschwager, checkout counters and Muzak gave the gallery the look and feel of a common grocery store. 

Reviewing the show for Time Magazine, Calvin Tomkins wrote “We may well inquire why so many young artists have hit on food as the ideal subject matter. The artists can be counted on to reply promptly, why not? Food is always around, for one thing, and it has always had a solid place in art. Grace Glueck in the New York Times noted that on the eve of the opening collector Robert Scull insisted on the removal of his Jasper John's work, because he did not want anyone touching it.

“In 1964, Dorothy Herzka was the director of the Paul Bianchini Gallery (16 E. 78th Street), one block south of Leo Castelli’s, which had hosted Lichtenstein’s career-making sold-out show in 1962. Blonde, with all-American good looks, Dorothy could almost have been a romance comic “girl in distress” in a “Lichtenstein painting. Charged with devising art shows for Bianchini that showed more of a contemporary edge, Dorothy scheduled the American Supermarket show.

This exhibition was a unique type of art show, even for the heyday of Pop: the gallery was set up like a grocery store, with items for sale that were also original works of art: Warhol soup cans; a 3-D turkey by Tom Wesselman; sculptures of cakes, cookies, and candies by Oldenburg; plaster loaves of bread by Robert Watts; and, presumably for gallery goers to carry purchases home, shopping bags emblazoned with screen prints of a cartoon turkey by Lichtenstein and a Campbell’s soup can by Warhol.”

- Mark P. Bernardo, Lichtenstein in New York