The Graphic Vegetable

These 580 juicy images capture the fact that throughout history, artists and artisans have depicted vegetables in remarkable ways. Still lifes, photographs, amusing antique postcards, seed packet art—all sorts of vegetable illustrations have been created to arouse physical and aesthetic appetites, and they are displayed here together with interesting botanical and historical insights. This wealth of vegetable art includes paintings by American artists like Lily Martin Spencer, Ernest Lawson, and Charles Demuth; engravings and lithographs by major printmaking companies like Louis Prang and Company; botanical illustrations; and commercial images drawn from vintage catalogs and seed packets. Vegetables are represented in colorful glory, from the hundreds we appreciate daily—like tomatoes, potatoes, peas, and carrots—to less-familiar vegetables like sea kale, cardoon, and walking onions.