I’ve seen plenty of Cream of Wheat posters with the ever-smiling chef holding a bowl of the stuff. But when I saw that a local auction house was selling some of the original paintings, I wanted to see them in the flesh.
These oil paintings gave birth to the many illustrations of the Cream of Wheat chef that wound up on some of the most recognizable posters and in magazines. I wrote about the chef and one of the more prolific of the illustrators several years ago after coming across a poster and a magazine ad at two auctions.
Many of the posters are racist depictions of African Americans aimed at selling the product. Surprisingly, I actually found an ad with a little black boy and the chef without the customary watermelon in sight. The illustration by Edward Vincent Brewer still placed the boy and chef in a subservient role.
The identity of the chef is the subject of several stories. One says that Emery Mapes, who in 1893 made the product and managed the advertising campaign, took the image from some old printing plates of a black chef holding a saucepan.
Another story is that Mapes gave a black chef in Chicago $5 to pose for a photo. Still another story is that he was an African American chef named Frank L. White who worked in a Chicago restaurant around the turn of the 20th century. The chef was given the name “Rastus the chef,” a racist term used for African Americans.
Illustrating the chef for the ads was not child’s play. Mapes chose some of the country’s finest artists/illustrators to do the work, including N.C. Wyeth, Philip R. Goodwin, J.C. Leyendecker and Jessie Willcox Smith. Some of them were also doing covers for the Saturday Evening Post.
Here are some of the paintings from the auction and the price they sold for. The prices do not appear to include the 27 percent buyer’s premium:
Charles Leslie Thrasher oil painting of a woman startled to see the chef on a poster, 1913. It sold for $3,750, the highest paid for any of the paintings. Thrasher was known for creating a successful series in 1926 for Liberty Magazine titled “For The Love o’ Lil” about a couple named Lil Morse and Sandford Jenkins.
Edward Vincent Brewer, who also sculpted the bust. This 1916 painting titled “Who Can Spell Cream of Wheat” shows children raising their hands in a school, $1,200.
Denman Fink, “A Case of Desertion,” 1908, $2,000. It featured a little African American boy eating a bowl of Cream of Wheat along with a discarded watermelon (folks just couldn’t get away from those watermelons). Fink was an artist who also designed buildings in Coral Gables, FL, and he was the city’s artistic director.
William R. Sullivan illustration of a black boy with Cream of Wheat posters and a white boy with a history book, $1,000. From the estate of Charles Martignette, an avid collector of illustration and pin-up art.
Edward Vincent Brewer oil on canvas of old man talking to boy selling papers with Cream of Wheat image, 1915, $500.
Edward Vincent Brewer oil on canvas of old man who remembers that he forgot to buy Cream of Wheat at grocery store, 1913, $550.
Edward Vincent Brewer oil on canvas of white kid flogging an old black man pulling him in a wheelbarrow, 1914. It did not sell.
