Lunch at the Natural History Museum
What would Darwin think about how we are evolving today in the way that we eat, indulge and dress? Pat Williams’ painting poses a curious juxtaposition.
Lunch at the Natural History Museum (Darwin Ponders Evolution) - Click to enlarge
From a distance it looks like a casually taken photograph, but this is a figurative painting of two women found in different parts of the museum and brought together either side of Darwin’s remote statue in the background.
The artist Pat Williams says she was inspired by the women “indulging in copious quantities of restaurant food in their somewhat unflattering colourful wear with Darwin looking on in the background.”
She contrasts the image with her 17 years living in Zambia “experiencing shortages of absolutely everything (though there was never famine), learning to make things from scratch and recycling out of necessity”.
The image was originally selected by the BBC art critic, Mark Lawson, for the Discerning Eye Exhibition at the Mall Galleries in London, 2004.
What would Darwin think about how we are evolving today in the way that we eat, indulge and dress?
Pat Williams is a figurative artist.
I love this! I did think it was a photo to start with. I love that Pat went to the effort to paint something that looks like a casual snapshot from the restaurant table, and that so fits with the idea that it’s contrasting Darwinian thinking with “the way we live now”. Perfect!
Hello – thank you for your comment. I’m very much a people watcher and indeed did see these two characters in the Natural History Museum, though the one in pink was actually in the shop at the time. I had to do a bit of rearranging to squash everything in, but of course it was the sculpture of Darwin in the background that inspired the alternative title.
He’s probably thinking, “I expect there’s increasing selection pressure for wide arteries.”