“The Thousand Recipe Chinese Cookbook” (by Gloria Bley Miller). Artist: Earl Thollander Known for the many books that he wrote and illustrated while drawing on location, Earl Thollander created a most masterful collection of a specific culinary technique. The collection was first printed in 1966. It had a hard cover and 926 pages of recipes – instructions and illustrations. Earl created the 400 illustrations – he described his method as “sitting at great number of locations, right on the sidewalk in the bustle of San Francisco’s Chinese communities”. There were also illustrations of areas in China and a complete study of the cooking tools and products – so much a part of described cuisine. The book was reprinted through the 1960s, ’70s,’80s and ’90s with each with a different cover. The white cover seems the most compatible with the enclosed artwork. Even the softcover version in 1984 weighed over three pounds.
Earl Thollander Illustrations
“Sunset Recipe Annual, 1995 Edition” Artists: David Broad and Alice Harth. This, a 256 page, hardcover book, includes an abundance of (289) beautiful photographs and the artistic touches of David Broad and Alice Harth. The book offers no printed credits to artists and photographers. Names were printed tight to the photographs and David placed his name in his art and Alice signed with her initials.
David Broad, who’s other art styles have been featured in a past Geezer Gallery posting, was the artist bringing his unique humorous style to this annual collection of recipes. Here, below, are examples of just some of his15 illustrations in the book. Alice Harth, had a long association with Sunset Publishing Corporation. Alice presented 51 illustrations of the foods next to the written recipes. These illustrations required her to create a display of the food and she had to devise the setting for each, with appropriate decorative objects appropriate to the preparation and prepared foods. These renderings did not reflect her normal artistic style, but were realistic to aid in showing the 51 recipes – an alternative to the already extensive amount of photographs in the publication.
(Two examples of Alice’s recognized individual style are shown here, also.)
David Broad Illustrations
Alice Harth Illustrations
Sunset’s “Gifts from Your Kitchen”, first printed in 1988. Artist: Dick Cole. Dick Cole was known for his fine art and commercial watercolor paintings. I was surprised to see that there were some of his illustrations in this Sunset book. Besides the decorative illustrations, Dick had the ability to show cooking procedures. Drawings that show precise methods – -“hands-on” visual instructions are often a necessary part of a recipe and not an example of style so much as the need to show a clear depiction of a procedure.
Dick Cole Illustrations
A Raisin Recipe Booklet
Above also is a quite unusual booklet of recipes created by the agency, J. Walter Thompson Company. They had the California Raisin Advisory Board as a client. I am guessing that was in the early 1970s.
Here, above, are some pages of the simple (12 page plus cover) collection of recipes. The intro tells “The history of the little raisin”. The main expense for this simple booklet had to be purchase of the tiny velum envelopes and plastic magnifiers, the printing of the tiny label reading: “RAISIN” and the handling, stapling it all to the inside cover of the folder. The five illustrations in the booklet were very simple line art. There is no reference about the artist and I do not know the JWT art director on this project.
Ann Thompson