Let them eat (Thiebaud) cake: SFMOMA coffee bar offers artful desserts
- September 12, 2010 15:57
If you ever wanted to lick the thick and alluring frosting (brushwork) of a Wayne Thiebaud cake painting, or deconstruct Mondrian's abstractions with a fork, the time has come. The coffee bar within the new rooftop sculpture garden at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is making edible art inspired by the museum's collection.
Pastry chef Caitlin Williams Freeman translates works by modern masters into tasty delectables. Her Piet Mondrian dessert, for example, echoes his bold geometric art with a cake based on the recipe for the checkerboard-like British Victorian "Battenberg cake."
Thiebaud's painting "Display Cakes" at SFMOMA was Freeman's original inspiration. She told Huffington Post that upon seeing the work, "I was captivated." A Thiebaud-style butter cake is on the menu, of course.
So what would Jeff Koons's "Michael Jackson and Bubbles" taste and look like as a dessert?