][1]We’ve mentioned Domenico Crolla and his pizza art before on the 5pm Takeaway blog. If memory serves, the owner of Bella Napoli in Glasgow’s Southside had just recreated the Mona Lisa in pizza form and we were very tickled by his Mona Pizza.
Mr Crolla’s latest work of art is a portrait of Andy Warhol. The Warhol pizza was made to mark the forthcoming Warhol exhibition which is taking place at The Scottish Parliament from October 5th.
Deep pan portraits
Previous pizza portraits from the Crolla school have included The Pope, footballer Cristiano Ronaldo and singer Rihanna.
According to Mr Crolla, it was Warhol himself who gave him the idea:
‘It was Warhol’s striking monochrome printing technique that was the initial inspiration for my celebrity pizza portraits so it makes sense that Warhol himself should feature on one of my pizzas.’
Art imitates life
It would be easy to say that Mr Crolla’s pizza art is a clever, elaborate and well executed publicity gimmick. And there is nothing wrong with that. However, it seems that life is beginning to imitate art.
Mr Crolla was recently commissioned by art dealer Jean Bernard to create a pizza portrait of his wife, Debra Arman, to be displayed alongside Warhol’s original painting of Arman in his Miami art gallery.
‘Jean’s wife is Debra Arman, muse to Andy Warhol and Keith Haring,’ explains Mr Crolla, ‘so it was a great honour to get this opportunity to depict her portrait in pizza to be displayed alongside the work of the artist who inspired me in the first place.’
The 5pm Dining blog suspects that Warhol would have been tickled pink at the idea of being immortalised in pizza.