My first inspiration to paint waiters was in the Piazza San Marco in Venice in 1991. I had already spent years doing commissioned portraits from watercolors of children to oils of judges and state officials for courthouses and state buildings. I knew the face and how to portray it well. The waiters that I noticed at the Café Florian in Venice had their backs turned to me. And, in that second, I saw their individuality, even without seeing their faces, as well as their universality. In their black and white uniforms they could have been working in any fine restaurant throughout the world, in this century or the last. I was hooked on the subject.
As I proceeded to haunt restaurants throughout my travels, drawing and taking quick snapshots of waiters working, I began to develop a style that was both painterly and figurative as well as abbreviated and almost abstract. I admit to being mired in the figurative. I love painting the human figure whether it be the face or the body but, in my paintings of waiters and now chefs, I use that figure to create compositions that are really all about abstract forms, their balance and play within my canvas.
This subject has fascinated me on so many levels that I continue to pursue it. As my waiter paintings became known, I began to be invited into the hidden confines of restaurants, the kitchens, where, in my opinion, the real action is. A restaurant kitchen is an amazing place. There is nonstop action. Everything during a service is done at nearly breakneck speed. And yet, there is method in the apparent chaos. Chefs and cooks seem to be aware of one another’s presence and movements without, apparently, ever looking up from their own, intense concentration. For me, watching a chef, running along the line while others bend in, ever so slightly, to avoid a collision is like watching a beautiful choreography, a dance played out in top speed and yet with grace and style.
I have taken thousands of pictures. Sometimes I change elements but often I merely simplify what actually happened in a split second. From these snaps I create my paintings. They portray chefs in many of the top restaurants of the world from Taillevent, Guy Savoy, LaSerre, PreCatalan and more in Paris to the Four Seasons and Le Circ in NYC to Raffles in Singapore and cafes in Rome, Buenos Aires and on and on.
Chefs and waiters are my ballerinas and they continue to fascinate me. As a side, I’ve had some of the most amazing meals not available on any menu from my new friends in these restaurants in their kitchens. As one whizzes by saying ‘Try this’ and another says ‘What wine did he give you to go with that? No, no try this one’ I get to enjoy the great fun of the restaurant world and I get the most fascinating, intriguing and beautiful subject matter for my art that I can imagine.

Bon Appetit!

Bio

1977 Harvard AB in Fine Arts
1986-88 Apprenticeship to Henry Barnes, portraitist in Atlanta, GA
1990's Owned and operated the Cynthia McCallister Gallery at 560 Broadway New York, NY
Cynthia has lived, worked and shown in NYC, Paris, Rome, Buenos Aires and now Jupiter, FL
Her work is in collections throughout the United States, Europe and South America