My Favorite 3 Inspiring Food Artists
Food is a powerful tool for fostering connection. Paintings of food are a reminder that we are human through their imperfections. I have been inspired to paint food for over a decade. I continually look back to the same artists who are also inspired by food. When I do, I discover new things about myself and my work. The artists I share below capture food satisfyingly imperfectly. The images they create are about the feelings they evoke rather than being a replica of what they represent. All three artists have had a major impact on American culture from editorial and advertising to the fine art market.
Wendy MacNaughton
MacNaughton is a San Francisco based NY-Times best selling editorial illustrator + journalist. I was introduced to her work through the incredible book Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat. I fell in love with her loose illustrative style and have wanted to understand her perspective ever since.
MacNaughton’s work is based in the practices of drawing, social work, and storytelling. She combines the practice of deep looking, listening, and drawing to create stories of often overlooked people, places, and things. Wendy uses drawing as a vehicle for connection. She is also the founder of the non-profit program “DrawTogether” which encourages art to grow people’s hearts in learning spaces globally. “We empower learners to develop curiosity, creativity, confidence, and connection through high-quality drawing-based experiences. And we empower educators to support those goals by offering a variety of resources and activities.” - drawtogether.studio
MacNaughton states, “Drawing is looking. Looking is loving.” What’s not to love?!
Cipe Pineles
"Herbs: From Garden to Kitchen." Ladies Home Journal, 1964.
“Pineles was a 20th-century art director and graphic designer whose influence has touched generations, though few people know her name. In the 1940s, as the first female art director at Conde Nast, Pineles helped launch Seventeen Magazine, and in doing so, created an entirely new media category dedicated to young women. She was the first to hire fine artists for magazine illustration, among them Andy Warhol, who once called her his favorite art director.” - Abby Goldstein
I first learned about Cipe Pineles when I stumbled upon the book Leave Me Alone with the Recipes. I had initally picked it up because I know of the editors Sarah Rich, Wendy MacNaughton, Maria Popova and Debbie Millman. Just like them, I was floored by fresh and timeless food illustrations in the page.
“Several years’ search for women in graphic design history had revealed some problems: much of women’s participation had been ignored…” - Martha Scotford, Cipe Pineles: a Life of Design. Fortunately for us and generations to come, Cipe’s children donated her archives to the Graphic Design Archives at the Rochster Institute of Technology.
Wayne Thiebaud
Wayne Thiebaud, Pie Counter, 1963
Arizona born Wayne Thiebaud was a cartoonist and a draftsman in the military prior to becoming a painter. He is known for his work that captures every day life in our most intimate moments. He believed strongly in his daily practice of art making. He noted that being a painter is something that you have to prove.
Thiebaud was not an overnight success. He claimed he was fortunate for the timing of his work’s debut which coincided with the beginning of the Pop Art movement. He viewed his work as abstractions, methodical drawings and compositions with subtle shifts found in the real world. The imperfect tilt of cakes in different directions is a good example of this. He remarks, “If we don’t have a sense of humor, we lack of sense of perspective.”
I dream of seeing one of his paintings in person. The paint on his infamous cake paintings is laid on thick, imitating real frosting. I adore his paintings from everyday life, inanimate objects like coffee, cakes, and pies. What is most fascinating to me is the way that he layers color in unexpected places like shadows.