Some of Andy Warhol's most iconic images are to appear on billboards across London as part of a new TV series about the American artist on Channel 4.

Warhol's instantly-recognisable images of Campbell's Soup and Can and Marilyn Monroe will be plastered across 400sq ft poster sites in the city from Wednesday.

The three-part TV series Andy Warhol: The Complete Picture begins on 27 January and coincides with a major restrospective of the artist's work at the capital's Tate Modern from 7 February.

Channel 4's marketing manager Nick Stringer said: "The new Andy Warhol series presented us with a great opportunity to do something original and surprising and, to be honest, anything you do to promote Warhol demands you think differently."

Low brow

Andy Warhol was born Andrew Warhola in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1928 establishing himself as a successful commercial artist in the 1950s.

In the 1960s Warhol mixed the low brow world of consumer culture with the high brow world of art and his images quickly caught both the public's and intellectual world's imagination.

The artist died in 1987 after routine gall bladder surgery.

Channel 4 was given permission to display Warhol's work on more than 50 billboards across London by the Warhol Foundation.

Martin Cribb from the Warhol Foundation said: "This poster campaign seems particularly apt because Warhol always observed that Pop was all around on billboards and hoardings, and he saw his work as reflecting the existing landscape."

The TV series will feature interviews with more than 60 of Warhol's close friends, collaborators and admirers.