I walked into the Ludwig Museum in Cologne not expecting much. And then—boom—right in front of me: a stack of Brillo and Campbell’s boxes. Corrugated. Printed. Familiar. Almost… industrial.
But this wasn’t a packaging fair. It was a museum.
Turns out, it was one of Andy Warhol’s most iconic installations:
📦 Brillo Boxes and Campbell’s Boxes, created in 1964 using silkscreen on wood. They look like shipping cartons, but they’re considered fine art.
So of course I had to ask myself: How much does this “pile of boxes” cost?
📈 The answer is stunning:
Year Sale Price
1964–65 First gallery show (Boxes) $200–400 per box
1969 Private sale (Brillo box) $1,000
2008 Sotheby’s $4,700,000
2010 Christie’s NYC $3,050,500
2014 Set of 4 branded boxes $4,197,000
🟡 Today? Experts estimate the full installation could be worth tens of millions of dollars — possibly over $100 million.
💡 But here’s what struck me most:
Warhol was the first artist to elevate corrugated packaging and the aesthetic of flexographic printing to the level of high art.
The dots, misregistration, color overlaps, halftone screens — these were not flaws. They were intentional imitations of flexo printing, the same printing process used on real packaging. In a way, Warhol immortalized our industry on gallery walls.
And he wasn’t alone.
Just steps away, I saw Roy Lichtenstein’s iconic pop-art painting:
🖼️ “M-Maybe he became ill and couldn’t leave the studio” (1965) — another masterpiece built around the language of print: halftones, dots, bold lines.
This was the moment when packaging, print and pop culture merged into art history.
“M-Maybe he became ill and couldn’t leave the studio!” — 1965. A comic book meets mass print culture.
📍The lesson?
That box on your warehouse floor? That flexo misprint you’re about to discard? It might just be a masterpiece in disguise. Because packaging is not just a function. It’s a canvas.
Have a wonderful weekend, everyone! ✨
— Igor Tkalenko, reporting from Cologne. corruga.expert
