Andy Warhol is arguably the most important figure of American Pop Art, a 1960s movement characterized by its critique of postwar consumerism and popular culture. Warhol is widely known for cool, detached works that borrow images from television, advertising, and other mass media. His subject matter included ubiquitous consumer items such as Coca-Cola bottles and Campbell's soup cans and celebrity figures ranging from Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley to Jacqueline Kennedy.

In Brillo Boxes Warhol took a popular consumer item and elevated it to the level of high art by producing large-scale trompel'oeil (trick of the eye) versions of the original. Warhol silkscreened the "Brillo Pad" logo onto previously manufactured, painted wooden boxes, and stacked the objects to mimic a supermarket product display.