As the old saying goes, “We eat first with our eyes.” When we asked Des Moines Art Center senior curator Laura Burkhalter to scour the museum’s cupboards (otherwise known as the permanent collections) for food-themed art, she assembled a surprising visual feast. Bon appétit!
“Sample 3,” 1990 (above)
Jeanne Dunning (born 1960) injects her photographs with a sense of mystery and carnality that makes it easy to think you see something that is not actually there. Food shows up frequently in her artwork, often as a stand-in for parts of the body. “Sample 3” appears to feature a ghostly hand extending a mysterious tumor or organ, which is in fact a peeled tomato. The photograph is not a complete illusion, and the banal nature of the subject is clearly visible upon examination, but the initial shock or uneasiness of what her imagery suggests often refuses to dissipate. Using distortion, embellishment, saturated colors, and rich blacks and whites, “Sample 3” both fascinates and repels.
Cibachrome mounted to Plexiglas. Gift of Eileen Cohen, 2004.17.
“Brews,” 1970 (above)
From the series “News, Mews, Pews, Brews, Stews & Dues”
Ed Ruscha (born 1937) often isolates a word, phrase or object in his work, instilling it with stature, humor and sometimes meaninglessness. Typical of his wordplay is “Brews,” in which the word is spelled out in fizzy beer foam on a golden background. In the 1970s, Ruscha put aside traditional artists’ pigments and began using organic materials in his paintings, drawings and prints. He tried caviar, chewing tobacco, Pepto-Bismol, bourbon, chocolate, rose petals, castor oil, spinach, gunpowder and a host of other substances. “Brews” was made during this time of experimentation and printed with vegetable dyes that reinforce the artist’s charming play with the interconnectedness of language, image and materials.
Silkscreen print and vegetable dyes on paper. Gift of Peg Buckley, 2010.107.
“Boston Cremes,” 1970 (above)
A one-time sign painter and cartoonist for Walt Disney Studios, Wayne Thiebaud (1920-2021) is known for his repetitive images of food rendered in bright colors. Cakes and pies were one of his favorite subjects, although he also portrayed other “Pop” foods such as hamburgers, hot dogs, ice cream and candy. The artist presented food as a consumer item, neatly lined up in colors and textures that are visually appealing but decidedly removed from reality. In a manner similar to advertising, “Boston Cremes” presents us with food as an object of desire rather than sustenance.
Linoleum cut on paper. Purchased with funds from Rose F. Rosenfield, 1972.1.
“Pepper No. 35,” 1930 (right)
Edward Weston (1886-1958) was a major figure in American Modernism and photography, whose landscape, still lifes and figurative images demonstrate technical mastery of the photographic medium while pushing simple compositions towards abstraction. Over four days in August 1930, he photographed several green peppers, using a metal bowl as a background. The rounded surface provided an obscure backdrop, and its curves added depth to the composition. Besides that, the emphasis on shadow and light transforms the humble peppers into something resembling the human form. The images became a signature of the artist’s body of work as well as some of the most iconic American photographs of all time.
Gelatin silver print. Gift of Jack and Diane Robertson, 2025.139.
“Taco Pizza Harvest,” 2021 (above)
Justin Favela (born 1986) is a multimedia artist whose work explores Latinx identity, art history and cultural intersections. Food is often the subject of his work as history, cultural values and aesthetics are easily expressed by society’s attitudes toward certain food and its production. During Favela’s 2021 Des Moines Art Center exhibition “Central American,” he became obsessed with taco pizza, an Iowa original that is the result of decades of immigration and food experimentation. For this print, the artist assembled and photographed all the ingredients needed to make a taco pizza and presents them in a manner inspired by both Pop Art and the hand-colored fruit and vegetable lithographs of another Iowa original, Grant Wood.
Screenprint on paper. Gift of the Des Moines Art Center Print Club, 2021.70.
“Vegetables,” 1938 (above)
Grant Wood (1891-1942) is most famous for his landscapes of rural Iowa and portraits of its farmers and small-town residents. The artist used his prints to focus on small objects and still-life arrangements related to agricultural life. In this example, the compact configuration of vegetables contains a wonderful level of detail, and Wood clearly enjoyed fitting the various shapes and lines of the vegetables into the rounded form of the bowl and platter. The Art Center also owns the work’s companion print, “Basket of Fruit.”
Hand-colored lithograph. Purchased by the Lucile Burchette Memorial Fund, 1980.20.
Hungry for more?
“Artists Around the Table,” an exhibition of drawings, prints, photos and a film about chatty gatherings of artists and friends in the 1920s-1940s, runs through Aug. 30 in the Art Center’s John Brady Print Gallery.
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