Canning novelty. Early methods of manufacture employed poisonous lead solder for sealing the cans. Studies in the 1980s attributed the lead from the cans as a factor in the disastrous outcome of the 1845 Franklin expedition to chart and navigate the Northwest Passage. Later studies found this to be false. Increasing mechanization of the canning process, coupled with a huge increase in urban populations across Europe, resulted in a rising demand for canned food. A number of inventions and improvements followed, and by the 1860s smaller machine-made steel cans were possible, and the time to cook food in sealed cans had
Campbell's Soup Cans Campbell's Soup can paintings. It is composed of ten rows and twenty columns of numerous flavors of soups. Experts point to it as one of the most significant works of pop art both as a pop representation and as conjunction with immediate predecessors such as Jasper Johns and the successors movements of Minimal and Conceptual art. The very similar "100 Cans" from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery collection is shown above. The earliest soup can painting seems to be "Campbell's Soup Can (Tomato Rice)," a 1960 ink, tempera, crayon, and oil canvas. In many of the works, including the original series,