Browse our selection of fine art food paintings for sale. Whether you’re just beginning your collection or looking to add to an existing one, you can find a large collection of food and beverage themed artworks in our online gallery.
Our carefully curated selection includes a variety of styles. Figurative food paintings carefully recreate the texture of everything from vibrant fruit and sumptuous desserts.
On the other hand, our illustrative food paintings showcase bright colours and graphic styles that reference food and pop culture. Discover these contemporary food paintings online today.
The History of Food Art
Food brings us together. It is often the focal point around which we congregate and socialise. It has the unique ability to capture the zeitgeist, demonstrating consumer and cultural trends. This makes food an object of cultural fascination, imbuing artworks with a sense of time and mood.
Food is a natural point of interest for artists trying to capture everyday life and the world around them. Early still life paintings included food on ancient Egyptian tombs and the murals of ancient Rome as symbols of abundance.
In the Northern Renaissance, food became a sign of wealth, status and even intellect or piety – food often symbolised the fleeting nature of life as a memento mori. Jacopo de' Barbari’s Still Life with Partridge, Iron Gloves, and Crossbow Bolt (1504) is thought to be one of the earliest still life paintings in which food plays a central role.
In the 20th century, still life painting evolved dramatically with movements like Cubism, Surrealism, and Pop Art. Traditional still life themes were reinterpreted, with food emerging as a way of exploring new facets of modernity like leisure time, consumer culture and mass packaging.
As food production was industrialised, artists created food paintings that explored its production and advertisement. Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans (1962), is perhaps the most famous example. The series of canvases elevated a mundane, mass-produced product to the status of fine art, challenging traditional notions of art and consumer culture.
Likewise, Claes Oldenburg’s The Store (1961) was a milestone Pop Art food work. The artist opened a shopfront on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and sold painted plaster sculptures of blueberry pie, ice cream and a rack of ribs. Contemporary artist Sarah Lucas has incorporated food in artworks such as Two Fried Eggs and a Kebab (1992), as humorous critiques of consumption, desire, and objectification.
Food Paintings for Sale on Rise Art
For vibrant paintings of food, look no further than Benjamin Receveur. The artist uses thick, textural oil paint to create luminous compositions. Citrons (2023), puts a contemporary twist on the modern still life – injecting a selection of lemons and limes with a neon shine which captures the play of light on the surface of the fruit.
For a different kind of food artwork, the painter Kate McCrickard creates bold, eclectic portraits of family meals. Cozy compositions like Table Manners, put the viewer at the centre of the action as family members pick at food, lick their fingers and chat animatedly over the dinner table. McCrickard captures the intimacy and communal history of food in her playful artworks.
You can explore more contemporary food paintings online at Rise Art.
