Bovine/Divine: Norma "Duffy" Lyon's "Last Supper" in Butter

In 1999, Norma “Duffy” Lyon sculptured a life-sized "Last Supper" made of 2,000 pounds of butter for the Iowa State Fair. Lyon was the butter sculptor-in-residence at the Iowa State Fair from 1960-2005 and her “Last Supper” drew an estimated 800,000 visitors during the ten-day exhibition. While butter sculptures have become centerpieces of American state fairs, these creations have received minimal attention from historians, perhaps owing to their ephemeral quality. This paper argues, however, that Duffy’s “Last Supper” deserves scholarly attention as an embodiment of American kitsch, a feminist reinterpretation of an iconic Renaissance scene, and an edible sculpture designed to inspire divine awe and wonder in the State Fair visitor. First, this paper discusses kitsch and camp in relation to edible sculpture, bringing scholars such as Susan Sontag, Clement Greenberg, and Harold Rosenberg into the discourse around Duffy’s enormous and popular butter works. Butter sculptures also provide a vehicle to discuss the gendered divide between "fine art" and culinary art, which has often been minimized as "women's work". Finally, Duffy reworked Leonardo’s original “Last Supper” composition to present what she believed to be a more engaging arrangement. In 1999, Duffy described how she made her figures’ poses seem “more realistic,” used different source images of Jesus and the disciplines, and sought to deepen her viewer’s psychic connection with this Christian scene. This paper concludes by relating the edible sculpture to the consumption of the "body and blood of Christ", considering Christian communion and the butter sculpture as devotional meals.