Image via Complex Original
intro
Every November, grade school classrooms are filled with construction paper turkeys, their feathers traced by wobbly fingers. Whether equipped with safety scissors or fine oil paints, artists have drawn inspiration from Thanksgiving Day for well over a century.
In the decades before newspapers were crammed with ads for Black Friday sales, top illustrators designed patriotic pictures that made us thankful for brave soldiers, sexy pin-up girls, and all things American. Distracting our nation from the darkness of war and economic depression, paintings of bustling kitchens and tables overflowing with food and family became as comforting as a second helping of pumpkin pie. Black-and-white photography has documented the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in the city, as well as holiday antics and anxiety in the suburbs.
Whether your Thanksgiving Day plans include seven courses at your Grandma’s house or Seven Delights at your favorite Chinese restaurant, this selection of Thanksgiving-inspired art (including Norman Rockwell's The Wishbone of 1921) is a feast for the senses.
Check out the Best Depictions of Turkey Day in History.
Nast
Thomas Nast (1840-1902)
Thanksgiving-Day, 1863
illustration
published in Harper’s Weekly
Although the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians celebrated health and harvest at Plymouth in 1621, Thanksgiving was not established as a holiday until 1863. Sarah J. Hale, an influential woman of many words (in addition to editing some of the most important magazines of the day, she penned the lines of Mary Had a Little Lamb), had campaigned for an official Thanksgiving Day since the 1830s. With both Sarah and the Civil War on his doorstep, President Abraham Lincoln finally proclaimed the last Thursday of November as a national day of thanksgiving. They hoped that the holiday would remind Americans of their shared past and bridge separation among the states.
Thomas Nast, who would later hilariously ridicule fat, corrupt politicians, created one of the first illustrations of the official Thanksgiving Day. The Army, the Navy, and Lady Liberty herself give thanks for the past year and ask for help in the new one.
dallin
Cyrus E. Dallin (1861-1944)
Massasoit, ca. 1911-1921
bronze
Coles Hill, Plymouth, MA
Without the Wampanoag Indians, early Pilgrims would have had almost nothing to put on their Thanksgiving table, and likely nothing to wear to the party. The Wampanoag taught the Pilgrims how to grow beans and corn, how to dig for shellfish, and how to hunt for food and clothing. Inspired by Massasoit, the Wampanoag leader, Cyrus Dallin created a monumental sculpture of him to celebrate the tercentenary of the Pilgrim colony.
The statue boldly stands near a plaque commemorating the National Day of Mourning, an annual gathering also held on the fourth Thursday of November, when people remember the sacrifices of American Indians and protest ongoing discrimination against Native peoples.
ferris
Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (1863-1930)
The First Thanksgiving 1621, ca. 1912-1915
oil on canvas
private collection
Jean Leon Gerome Ferris was from a family of artists, but not actually related to the famed painter Jean-Léon Gérôme, after whom he was named. Like the French master, he dedicated his career to history painting, but on his own turf. Ferris spent most of his life in Philadelphia, creating pictures of The Landing of William Penn and other early American adventures. He took great liberties with his portrayal of The First Thanksgiving, playing dress-up with Indians and Pilgrims by adding feathers and flourishes that were not exactly “historical.” But painted in the early years of the Great War, his idealized scene was popular in a world that was less than ideal.
lee
Doris Lee (1905-1983)
Thanksgiving, ca. 1935
oil on canvas
The Art Institute of Chicago
Rather than focus on the food on the table, Doris Lee takes us behind the scenes, showing us a busy, Depression-era kitchen. Women dressed in white aprons hustle to gather dishes, roll out dough, and prepare the bird. Meanwhile, a fur-clad woman in the background, perhaps not as affected by the current economic crisis, adjusts her flowered hat. Like that one weird uncle that we all have, this painting reminds us of how holidays unite family members from all walks of life.
delaney
Joseph Delaney (1904-1991)
Thanksgiving Day Parade with Danny Kaye was Young, 1940
oil on paperboard
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Joseph Delaney and his older brother, Beauford, were both born in Knoxville, TN, and discovered their love of art by drawing on cards at Sunday School. As a young man, Joseph hopped on freight trains and worked odd jobs, eventually finding himself shooting pool in Chicago with some of the biggest names in 1920’s jazz. In the early 1930s, he moved to New York, where he studied with Thomas Hart Benton at the Art Students League. By the time he captured the color and energy of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1940, he had become deeply involved with the Work's Progress Administration (WPA) Art Project. We can see his life-long love of music and portraiture in many of his works, including this painting, which likely references the vaudevillian-turned-movie star Danny Kaye.
weegee
Weegee (Arthur Fellig, 1899-1968)
Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, 1942
photograph, gelatin silver print
The Museum of Modern Art
In the late 1930s, New York photojournalist Weegee was the only reporter with a permit for a portable police radio. With his darkroom in the trunk, he listened closely to broadcasts while he cruised the streets, often arriving first at the scene of a crime. He was hungry for the city’s best stories and worst social issues, which he could quickly capture with his camera at any hour. His sixth sense for scandal earned him the nickname “Weegee” (all-knowing, like an Ouija board). His sharp eye gave way to haunting black-and-white images, first published in newspapers and later collected by major art museums. Even a joyful celebration like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade becomes mysterious under Weegee’s critical cropping and storytelling. He saw what others missed.
moses
Anna Mary Robertson (Grandma) Moses (1860-1961)
Thanksgiving Turkey, 1943
oil on wood
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Grandma Moses was in her seventies when she started painting, but she was not “late in life.” Over the following three decades, she would create over 3,600 canvases, as well as live to see her eleven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. In 1938, she was selling her paintings in a drugstore in Hoosick Falls, NY, when a New York art collector scooped them up. One short year later, she was included in the Contemporary Unknown American Painters exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. Her charming pictures of rural communities and rolling countryside soon fetched large audiences, breaking attendance records all over the world. Her depictions of Thanksgiving and Christmas became particularly popular, and those who couldn’t make it to MOMA in New York or the Daimaru Museum in Japan could see them on greeting cards, fabrics, tiles, and advertisements.
rockwell
Norman Rockwell (1894-1978)
Freedom From Want, 1943
oil on canvas
The Norman Rockwell Museum
In the first days of 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt made his historic “Four Freedoms” speech, attempting to rally support for the war effort. At a time when Nazi powers dominated Western Europe, Roosevelt described his vision of a brighter future founded upon freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. Norman Rockwell, the famed illustrator of Life Magazine and the Saturday Evening Post, captured these four ideas of freedom on a series of canvases. He intended to donate the paintings to the War Department, but after receiving no response, the painter offered them to the Post, where they were first published in 1943. They were so popular that the magazine and the United States Department of Treasury later sponsored a traveling exhibit of the paintings, which raised $132 million in the sale of war bonds. Rockwell’s interpretation of “freedom from want” -- a smiling family gathered around a Thanksgiving turkey -- is considered to be the most enduring image, speaking to later generations.
gil
Attributed to Gil Elvgren (1914-1980)
Untitled, ca. 1940s - 1970s
illustration
Although she does not seem to appear on the list of known Gil Elvgren works, it is likely that he sketched this Pilgrim pin-up at some point in his long career. From the mid 1930s to 1972, Elvgren illustrated hundreds of pictures of coy, curvy ladies, turning everyday girls into full-blown fantasies. He created the red-lipped ladies that led Coca-Cola’s ad campaign for twenty-five years, as well as beauties that filled the pages of McCall’s, Cosmopolitan, and Good Housekeeping. Holidays were particularly opportune for this King of Calendar Girls, allowing him to dish up leggy brunettes like the one we see here.
owens
Bill Owens (b. 1938)
Every year I go to my mother-in-law's for Thanksgiving and every year I swear I'll never do it again. But I always do, do it again., negative 1972, print 1998
photograph, gelatin silver print
Addison Gallery of American Art
In 1972, Bill Owens was a news photographer in Livermore, CA, when he began taking pictures of backyard barbecues, women at the hair salon, and other images of blossoming suburban life. He knew that he wanted to capture holidays like Christmas, Thanksgiving, and the Fourth of July -- such celebrations were the focus of Owens’s work and local life while the Vietnam conflict dragged on in the background. Although his photos were all taken within a single year, his critical distance, as well as the “rediscovery” of his work by director Sophia Coppola, make his Suburbia series relevant over three decades later.
loire
Gabriel Loire (1904-1996)
Glory Window, 1976
stained glass
Thanks-giving Square, Dallas, TX
Originally built to ease traffic in downtown Dallas, Thanks-Giving Square includes a park designed by architect Philip Johnson, works of public art, and a Chapel of Thanksgiving. The chapel, which is dedicated to the universal value of giving thanks, features a small, spiral tower topped with stained glass. This Glory Window is one of the largest horizontally mounted stained-glass pieces in the world. Designed by French artist Gabriel Loire, the colors become brighter at the center of the spiral. This remarkable public artwork gives us much to be thankful for, including fewer traffic jams.
barney
Tina Barney (b. 1945)
Thanksgiving, 1992
photograph, chromogenic print
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Tina Barney often turns her camera lens on her own family and friends, incorporating personal history into her large-scale photographs. Although she is interested in candid shots, she also meticulously lights and sometimes directs her subjects. In Thanksgiving, we see an intimate portrait of a young woman lost in thought, as well as a dramatic tableau of her family preparing for the holiday.
currin
John Currin (b. 1962)
Thanksgiving, 2003
oil on canvas
Tate National Collection of British Art
No other work of Thanksgiving art looks like John Currin’s interpretation of Thanksgiving. Instead of a family, there is one long-limbed woman (his wife, muse, and fellow artist, Rachel Feinstein) in three poses, depicted at three different stages of her life. Instead of a steaming, cooked turkey, there is a cold body of a dead bird, sitting in a pool of blood. Currin’s luminous figures draw on Renaissance painting and his erotic undertones are inspired by classic Playboy pin-ups, but his brand of wit is completely contemporary.
ethridge
Roe Ethridge (b. 1969)
Thanksgiving 1984, 2009
photograph, chromogenic print
The Museum of Modern Art
Roe Ethridge does not just blur the line between art and commercial photography. He eliminates it. Arguing, “Everything seems to end up in a magazine sooner or later,” he creates installations and book projects that mix fine-art photographs with magazine pictures. Portraits, landscapes, glossy fashion photographs, and grainy catalog images are shuffled and re-arranged to tell stories, often giving way to a new, but nostalgic, tone. Although Thanksgiving 1984 is only one image from a series, it pulls us in different directions, making our attention wander from the beautiful model to the kitschy table setting to the vintage wallpaper. The food and the woman both look fake, but the holiday sentiment feels real.