As Thanksgiving approaches, the internet is awash in meticulously styled food photography, all hinting at some kind of perfect, unattainable Thanksgiving dinner.
San Francisco-based artist Hannah Rothstein takes fussing over food in a different direction; her “Thanksgiving Special” photo series imagines how famous artists would plate their Thanksgiving meals.
Some of the images are as you would expect: The Piet Mondrian separates cranberry sauce, green beans, and stuffing into perfect, gravy-delineated rectangles, and the Georges Seurat forms a pumpkin out of dots of corn kernels. Others take more artistic license—like the Picasso-inspired meal served on the shards of a broken plate. (And the Rothko? It lives up to the description Jane Siegal gave the artist’s work on Mad Men: “Smudgy squares.”)
For those looking for some seasonal décor, Rothstein is offering signed, limited edition prints of her photographs ($75) through her website, with a portion of the proceeds benefitting the SF-Marin Food Bank.