Fine Art Dining

Fine Art Dining Pairs Food with Art History

Why Fine Art Dining?

“Good paintings are more satisfying companions than the best of books and infinitely more so than most very nice people.” Albert C Barnes (1872-1951)

While studying Art History at the University of Victoria, we galloped through centuries and cultures at top speed. Now a life-long learner, I savour artworks while solo dining. I am enriched by the company of these artists, many already passed, who live on through their artworks. Munching and reading, I search out their secrets, hidden in layers of paint and sculptural curves. My designer’s eye noticed beauty in the visual complements between food and art. So I began to orchestrate and photograph my suppertime dioramas. My reward? Cold food and a warm heart. Yesterday, when I put “round food” on my shopping list to match a Kandinsky circle painting, I realized the horse had left the barn. Please join me in this culinary romp through art history.

1990 was a busy year for Nixie Barton. She had recently completed her Fine Art studies at the University of Victoria. The Chinatown studio she shared with artist Grant Leier was a hive of creativity. Considered “best friends”, the couple married at Fran Willis Gallery in April 1989. Friends and family warmed the gallery’s loft space - while their two-person show glowed on the walls. Nixie and Grant moved to Yellow Point in 1994. With enthusiasm, they launched into the creation of a wonderland garden and on-site studio which became a tourist destination. Soon, their modest home overflowed with cultural treasures and timeless trivia. The partners now live in Nanaimo.

Photo from: The Romance Continues: A Celebration of Love and Art by Goody Niosi. 2005

Nixie Barton, “Sunlight”, acrylic on canvas, 36x36 in, 1990.

Detail: Howard Hodgkin, Waking up in Naples, oil on wood, 24x30, 1984.

Waking up in Naples recalls a romantic holiday in Italy in 1984. At the time, Hodgkin was representing Britain at the Venice Biennale, combining business with pleasure. He noted that 1984 marked the beginning of his life as an artist. Hodgkin believes his special skill is a strong visual memory. While painting, he recollects and describes particular moments involving certain individuals. “In recent years”, he says, “I’ve chosen subjects with which I’m personally and passionately involved.”

"Pedal to the Meddle" is one of three copper installations in "Meddling in the Museum" exhibition at UBC’s Museum of Anthropology in 2007.

Pedal to the Meddle by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, is a refurbished Pontiac Firefly, spray-painted black with copper accents. On the roof is a 7-metre-long dugout canoe from the UBC collection carved by Bill Reid in 1984. It rests just below the Bill Reid Rotunda in the museum. Tire tracks stencilled on the carpet give the illusion that the car is speeding away with its trophy, “emancipating” the canoe from the museum. Yahgulanaas requested that a sound system playing “California beats” be placed near the car to encourage visitors to socialize. He also envisioned people lounging in the car’s interior. Neither request was realized at UBC. The artist explains that in Haida-manga, objects can be flipped around to find new relationships. “Thus cars and parts can be used to reinvent a memory of the traditional copper shields of the Haida, making a contemporary shield of mixed heritage.”
Photo from: Mischief Making, Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, Art and the Seriousness of Play. By Nicola Levell, 2021.

Left: Robert Davidson (1946-) Beaver Panel, cedar, acrylic paint, 5 x 20 x 2 feet.
Right: Reg Davidson (1954-) Porsche Mask, cedar, horse hair, abalone shell, paint.15 x 15 x 8 inches, 2005.
From: Raven Travelling: Two Centuries of Haida Art, a publication supporting the 2006 exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Brothers Robert Davidson and Reg Davidson were raised in Masset on Haida Gwaii. Both have family lineage that includes renowned artist Charles Edenshaw (1839-1924). Robert Davidson explains that Haida art has two main alphabets or principles, the ovoid and the U-shape. These principles were active centuries before contact. In Haida designs, classical elements include proportion, balance, composition and attention to positive and negative space. “We have a supernatural being called Greatest Carpenter,” says Robert. The creations of this miraculous artisan “looked so real, they appeared to be winking at you.” The resurgence of Haida culture gained momentum during the 1950’s and 1960's thanks to the work of innovators like Bill Reid and researcher Bill Holm.

Born in the UK in 1969, Cecily Brown studied at the Slade School of Fine Art before moving to New York in 1994. Her monumental canvases team with vibrant colours and amorphous shapes, sculpted by gestural brushwork amid lush slathers of oil-based pigments. "The more I paint, the more I want to paint”, she says.

Where They Are Now is part of a series that re-imagines a photo taken by David Montgomery for the cover of Electric Ladyland (1968). The 1967 photo features a cluster of 19 nude women posing with Hendrix memorabilia. Brown’s visual response to the Electric Ladyland photo is both playful and savage. Where They Are Now speaks about the passage of time, the role of women and how media shapes and reshapes our lives.

Cecily Brown (1969- ) “Where They Are Now”, oil on linen, 5.5 x 7 feet, 2013. From: Great Women Painters, Phaidon Press, 2022.

David Montgomery, cover photo for Electric Ladyland, 1968

Gered Mankowitz, Jimi Hendrix, in Britain, 1967.

Plautilla Nelli (1524-88) Last Supper, oil on canvas, six by 23 feet, 1568. From: Great Women Painters, Phaidon Press, 2022.

Plautilla Nelli was a nun who lived in a 16th century Dominican convent in Florence. The art studio she managed produced many paintings for collectors and churches, generating income for the convent. Renowned during her lifetime, she is believed to be the first woman to paint the Last Supper scene. Nelli signed the Last Supper with the words Orate pro pictoria, (Pray for the Paintress). Miraculously, the painting survived five tumultuous centuries. In 2019, the restored painting, six by 23 feet long, was publicly displayed in a Florence museum, impressing viewers.
Much has been written about the words spoken at the Last Supper. But what was on the menu? Recent archaeological research suggests that the menu included: bean stew, lamb, olives, bitter herbs, fish sauce, dates, unleavened bread and wine. It was unlikely that a table was used, as the Roman custom was to sit on cushions around a low table. Please enjoy this visual feast along with Nelli’s magnum opus - her “mistresspiece” and the historic food.

Pansies is one of 17 artworks featured in the eighth publication of Shanty Bay Press.
This informative text, written by the artist, explains the evolution of his figurative and still life genres. Bachinski spent a year in France in 1978, studying the artworks of important painters like Chardin, Manet and Cezanne. These artworks, many depicting everyday objects, conveyed a depth of feeling and visual acuity that inspired his own practice. In the book’s summary, Bachinski explains his dedication to still life. “It takes all my emotional energy to make a still life,” he says, “and these emotions have inspired some of my most successful works of art.”

Walter Bachinski, “Pansies”, Pochoir variation, 2008. (From: Still Life, Illustrations and Text, by Bachinski for Shanty Bay Press, 2019).

Robert Kushner, Spring Scatter Summation, oil, acrylic, gold leaf and glitter on canvas, one of 10 panels, 7 ft x 46 ft overall. (From “Robert Kushner: Wild Gardens”, 2006)

This commissioned work, Spring Scatter Summation,
took Robert Kushner (1949-) seven months to complete. He followed an unfolding spring season to feature its emerging flowers. Before touring, this 7 x 46 foot canvas was exhibited at Wistariahurst Museum in Massachusetts.

A trip to Japan in 1985 inspired the artist to begin restoring and painting on antique Japanese screens. Many of his compositions include an element of chance. After laying the screen flat on the studio floor, he climbs a ladder. Randomly, he scatters paper markers that become place savers for flowers later painted on the screen.

In defence of decorative art he says: “The eye can wander, the mind think unencumbered through visual realms that are expansively and emotionally rich.”

View his mural at the Gramercy Grill in NYC HERE

David Hockney, (1937-)
This painting features the likeness of Hockney’s former lover Peter Schlesinger gazing into a swimming pool. They had recently separated in 1971. On the right, is a photo of Peter, showing an example of the multiple photos that Hockney re-assembled to convey greater details of his subjects.

Hockney described the ripple patterns in a pool to be a moving shimmering surface, not easily photographed or represented. But through the act of painting, the experience could be remembered and captured. This painting sold for $20,000 in 1972 and fetched $90 million at a Christie’s auction in 2018.

Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), acrylic on canvas, 84x120 in, 1972. Peter Schlesinger, London Eng, photo collage, 61x32 in, 1972. (From: “Hockney’s Portraits and People” by Livingstone and Heymer, 2003)

Helen McNicoll, “Marketplace", oil on canvas, 24x30 in, 1910

Helen McNicoll (1879-1915) was raised in Montreal and graduated from from the Art Association of Montreal (AAM) in 1901. In 1902, she attended London’s Slade School of Art. By 1910, she was a well-respected artist who received favourable reviews for paintings she exhibited in Canada, while maintaining her home/studio in London, England.
McNicoll travelled and painted in rural areas of Europe and England with her partner Dorothea Sharpe. McNicoll, deaf from age two, was grateful for Sharp’s negotiations in matters of travel and painting excursions.

Sadly, McNicoll died at age 35 in London from an illness. In 1925, her posthumous exhibition at the AAM, featured 150 artworks and drawings. Her loss to Canadian painting was compared to that of Tom Thompson (1877-1917).

Helen McNicoll “The Chintz Sofa”, 32x39in, oil on canvas, 1913

This painting was completed in the London, England home/studio of Helen McNicoll and Dorothea Sharp (1874-1955). Sharp is the subject on the chintz sofa. Studios where used for painting, networking and exhibitions. For example, in 1913, the two women hosted an Opening one week before the annual election to the Royal Society of British Artists was scheduled. Nearly sixty people attended the Opening, with Sharp advocating on McNicoll’s behalf. That same week, McNicoll was invited to join the prestigious male-centred British Artists Society. Women pursuing professional careers in the arts benefitted by founding organizations like the Society of Women Artists (1856). In 1913, Sharp was vice-president of the Women Artists Society.

Helen McNicoll, 1906, in her studio at the Cornish School of Landscape and Sea Painting in St. Ives Cornwall. In the course of her painting career, McNicoll had studios in several locations, including Montreal, Paris and London.
Sources cited: Helen McNicoll, Life & Work, by Samantha Burton.

Lionel LeMoine FitzGerald, “Woman with Camera Outdoors”, oil on canvas, 42x28 in, 1917. Source: “LL FitzGerald, Life & Work”, by Michael Parke-Taylor.

Lionel LeMoine FitzGerald (1890-1956) was a multi-media, meticulous artist who taught for many years at the Winnipeg School of Art. He believed that conveying the idea behind an artwork was paramount to success.

In 1917, Lionel LeMoine FitzGerald was 27 and working as a commercial artist in Winnipeg. He and his wife Felicia had a one-year-old child. This major early painting shows an intensely-focused elegant woman within a pastoral setting.

Questions arise: Who is she? Where are they?
What role does the current-model camera she cradles play in the drama? Clue: At this time, FitzGerald often used a borrowed camera. He developed, printed and catalogued his own negatives.

Howard Hodgkin (1932-2017) was a British painter and printmaker. His novel approach to portraiture was celebrated in an exhibition in 2017 at the National Portrait Gallery. The Exhibition Catalogue by Paul Moorhouse is titled Howard Hodgkin: Absent Friends.

The subject matter of Chez Stamos is “the interior of a great friend and collector” says Hodgkin. Monumental in size at over 6 by 8 feet, the viewer is enveloped by this personal character study which includes a painted frame.

Detail: Howard Hodgkin, "Chez Stamos", oil on wood, 78x102 in, 1998

Kathy at the Ritz by Howard Hodgkin recollects a moment in the Paris Ritz foyer, when Katherine Sachs “descended the stairs in a printed silk dress”.

Hodgkin had the ability to recall people and events with great visual detail, even years later. His strong emotional impressions were translated into colours and mark-making, with many of the compositions gestating in his mind before beginning.

Howard Hodgkin, “Kathy at the Ritz”, oil on wood, 14x18 in, 1991-93.

Kandinsky, "Detail of Several Circles", oil on canvas, 55x55 in, 1926. Source: Vasily Kandinsky, “Around the Circle”, Guggenheim Museum.

Vasily Kandinsky (1866-1944) talks about circles:
“I love circles today in the same way I love horses - perhaps even more since I find in circles more inner possibilities.”

This large painting, done in 1926 was completed while Kandinsky was teaching at the new Bauhaus School in Dessau, Germany from 1925-1932. Gunta Stolzl headed the Weaving Workshop and Paul Klee was an instructor. Due to political pressure the Bauhaus school closed in 1932, and Vasily and Nina Kandinsky moved to Paris in 1933.

In 1936, Kandinsky reminisces with his former colleague Paul Klee in a letter: “It would be so nice to drink a cup of tea with you again as we did so often enjoyably in Dessau, as colleagues and neighbours.”

Kandinsky, “Striped”, Oil with sand on canvas, 32x39 in, 1934

Kandinsky’s painting Striped (1934) is a unique blend of oil with sand on canvas. Arriving in Paris in 1933, he said:
“Paris, with its marvellous light (both strong and soft) has expanded my palette. Other colours appeared, other forms, radically new, all of course, in an unconscious fashion.”

Kandinsky was 67 in 1934. That year he had three major exhibitions. His watercolours and drawings were exhibited in Milan. He had a solo show in Stockholm with 45 paintings. And a Paris gallery exhibited his paintings and drawings. Art circle friends included: Robert Delaunay, Joan Miro, Max Ernest, Breton and Mondrian.

This double portrait describes two well-known professionals in the art world. Howard Hodgkin paints his friends as two flowery figures intertwined within an undefined environment. The enigmatic scene is a lively combination of expressive mark-making, linear shapes and odd angles. A viewer is invited to imagine the drama unfolding within the jostling puzzle pieces.

Hodgkin eschewed colour theories, saying he was uncertain as to why he chose certain hues. Yet, his relationship with colour was significant. He said: “nothing for a painter can compare to its infinite possibilities, its infinite seductions, the multiplicity of its possible meanings from the most profound to the most trivial.”

Hodgkin, “Robyn Denny and Katherine Reid”, oil on wood, 35x48 in, 1975

Howard Hodgkin is a keen observer of people and how they relate to each other and their surroundings. Small Durand Gardens, shows his visual memory of a dinner party given by friends. The artist uses a variety of colourful patterns and repeated shapes to convey the interactions of guests. In 1974-5, Hodgkin’s portraiture became more cohesive and less fragmented. “I was beginning to join everything up together,” he says. The newer paintings present an ambiguous architectural setting with a charged emotional atmosphere.

Hodgkin, detail “Small Durand Gardens”, oil on wood, 24x30 in, 1974

Mary Pratt, “Supper Table” (detail), oil on canvas, 24x35 in, 1969.

Mary Frances Pratt (1935-2018.)
In 1967, Pratt had her first solo exhibition at the Memorial University of Newfoundland Art Gallery in St John’s. Most of the 40 small sketches, landscapes, interiors and watercolours sold. At the time, Pratt was living with husband Christopher, raising four children at their Newfoundland home on the Salmonier River. In 1969, Supper Table was completed using a coloured slide taken by Christopher.

Pratt recalls in 2012:
My foray into painting with the help of the camera was pushed by Christopher. Only he encouraged me.
Critics in St John’s considered it “the end" of my innocence and my parents figured it was just cheating.
All of this undermined my confidence and I put away my paints and took up sewing lessons. But at Christmas Christopher put the slide of Eviscerated Chickens in an envelope with a note saying:
"Please finish this painting or I’ll be visiting you in the hospital for nervous diseases."
And Barby said, "But Mummy, if you aren’t a painter, what can you be?" So I painted.”

Pratt, "Eviscerated Chickens", oil on masonite, 18x21 in, 1971

Pratt, "Floating in a Pink Bowl", oil on canvas, 28x34 in, 1997

The Pratt family experienced a sad loss in 1975. Mary, aged 40, lost both twins she had carried to full term. One twin died in utero two weeks before delivery. The second twin, David, her one-day-old son, would have been their fifth child.

In 2012 Pratt remembers:
“The loss of the twins still means more to me that I care to admit. It had to affect my work. The first painting I did after I lost the twins was Eggs in an Egg Crate…All the eggshells were empty, a fact I failed to notice.”

“To me the surface is the given reality - the thin skin that shapes and holds these objects which we recognize as symbols. The fact of their place in the order of our lives is what I find most interesting," says Pratt.

Mary Pratt, Eggs in an Egg Crate, oil on masonite, 20x24 in,1975

Walter Bachinski, “Looking North La Cloche Mountains”, dyptych from “My Landscape”, Shanty Bay Press, 2022.

Walter Bachinski and Janis Butler operate Shanty Pay Press. Established in 1996, the private press produces limited-edition fine art books for collectors. The illustrations by Bachinski in My Landscape are accompanied by 14 poems by Canadian poets.

My Landscape illustrates favourite places in Northern Ontario explored during the couple’s sketching trips. Bachinski explains that he is attracted to areas like the La Cloche Mountains due to the unique quality of the light shining on the white quartzite of the mountains. “This intense clarity illuminates the landscape bringing out colours and relationships between forms that are unusual and compelling,” he says.

In the early 1990s George Little and David Lewis joined forces. They began to transform their city lot on Bainbridge Island into a lush sculptural environment, designed to enchant, inspire and educate themselves and visiting guests. Their journey is elegantly captured in A Garden Gallery: The Plants, Art and Hardscape of Little and Lewis, 2005. “Gardening is a celebration of joyful, artful collaboration,” says George.

In September 2023, I included a photo of their garden in Fine Art Dining. I emailed them the photo with a thank-you note. David delighted me by replying: “What a lovely idea,” he said. “And we feel quite honoured you opted to have your meal in our “garden". We are now happily living on Bainbridge and enjoying retirement.”

Photo from “A Garden Gallery” by George Little and David Lewis (2005).

Miles Davis (1926-1991) was an influential jazz musician and leader who played the trumpet, composed and arranged music for small groups. Davis became active in painting and drawing after suffering a stroke in 1980. Between 1980 and 1991, he created many drawings and paintings, which are featured in the 2013 book Miles Davis: the Collected Artwork. He had exhibitions in Spain, Germany and Japan, plus one in New York in 1990. He enjoyed seeing his paintings on display, which he signed, but did not title or date. “Painting and drawing are like therapy for me, and keep my mind occupied with something positive while not playing music,” he says.

Flamboyant and charismatic, Miles Davis was inspired by a design movement called Memphis that sported vibrant colours and abstract shapes. “If I have a canvas, I look at it like a musical arrangement," he says, “it has to be balanced like a Picasso - balanced and modern.” He sometimes dazzled audiences by appearing on stage in suits that matched his paintings!
“I don’t really plan my paintings. I’d rather work from inspiration and I usually get inspired by the colours themselves.”
Davis left unfinished canvases rolled up around the house and filled his living spaces with paintings. He often gifted paintings to friends. “Mostly I work at night. Yeah, it comes in the night. But I get the pleasure of seeing what I did in the morning. Sometimes, I’m surprised!”

In 1947, Matisse was approaching 80 and recovering from major surgery, but still producing vivid interiors. His large paper cutouts where produced at this time.

In 1908, writing in Notes of a Painter, Matisse said: “My choice of colours does not rest on any specific theory; it is based on observation, on sensitivity, on felt experiences.”

“What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity…a soothing calming influence on the mind, something like a good armchair that provides relaxation from physical fatigue.”

Henri Matisse, “Still Life on a Blue Table”, oil on canvas, 45x35 in, 1947

Henri Matisse, “The Dance”, Albert Barnes Foundation, 1933.

In 1930, the Albert Barnes Foundation commissioned Henri Matisse to create a modified version of The Dance for the arched vaults of the main gallery. It took Matisse three years to complete the project.

After travelling to Philadelphia in 1933 to oversee the final installation, Matisse said:
“It has a splendour that one can’t imagine unless one sees it - because both the whole ceiling and the arched vaults come alive through radiation, and the main effect continues right down to the floor.
I am profoundly tired but very pleased.”

Found in Manawa, Pacific Heartbeat, A Celebration of Contemporary Maori and Northwest Coast Art. By Nigel Reading and Gary Wyatt.

Left Image:
Lily Leaf Platter (with lid) by Kerry Kapua Thompson, medium is Queensland kauri pine, Australia’s native softwood, 19x19 inches. Thompson comments: "This platter was a challenge. I was playing with the idea of interweaving lily leaves in an abstract circular form of the path of life."

Right Image:
Frog and Raven Warrior (with war visor) by Stan Bevan, alder, 14 x10 x 5 inches. Frog is the liaison between two worlds, such as the deep forest and the human world. Raven is a communicator and carrier of knowledge. The frog and raven are crests that carry the history of the clan.

Miriam Schapiro, “Cabinet for All Seasons”, four panels, each 70x40 in, acrylic and fabric on canvas, 1974.

Miriam Schapiro (1923-2015) used monumental fabric collages to express gender-based concerns:
“What does it feel like to be a woman?
To be formed around a central core and to have a secret place which can be entered and a passageway from which life emerges?”

In 1970, Schapiro along with Judy Chicago, founded the Feminist Art Program at California Institute of the Arts. The two instructors invited students to construct Womanhouse, a feminist environment in an abandoned house in Hollywood.

In 1976, the Los Angeles exhibition titled Women Artists, 1550-1950, inspired Schapiro. “I am an artist looking for legitimate ancestry,” she explained in 1977.

Palingenesis showed in Lee Krasner: Large Paintings at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York in 1973. The expansive painting was a blend of vivid colours and organic shapes. Eleven feet in length, it took up most of one wall at the gallery.
Palingenesis is a Greek term for rebirth.
In 1972 Krasner said: “evolution, growth and change go on. Change is life. I am preoccupied with trying to know myself in order to communicate with others.”

Lee Krasner (1908-1984) and Jackson Pollock were partners from 1942 until his death in 1956. “Painting is a revelation, an act of love,” she says, “as a painter I can’t experience it any other way”.

Lee Krasner, “Palingenesis” oil on canvas, 7 ft x 11 ft, 1971

Web Design and Content by Kate Cino
Arts writer published in Focus on Victoria, Yam and Boulevard.
History in Art degree and Public Relations certificate from
the University of Victoria

This website and its content is copyright of Art Openings, 2009.
All rights reserved.
Written permission is required for reproduction of photos or text.
[email protected] 250 598-4009