The painting Worship Warm Turkey, displayed at the gallery, was painted in 1986 by the American painter Peter Saul. His work Worship Warm Turkey, acrylic on paper, addresses consumerism, religion and violence in a colourful, comic but also highly sexual style. While the word worship in the title of the artwork generally refers to the feeling or expression of reverence and adoration for a deity, the worship is here associated with a warm turkey, an element embodying consumerism. The image shows the crucifixion of a sausage with human features, legs, eyes and hands. This reference shows the provocative and comic dimension of Saul's works. The humour and excess in this piece, denouncing the chaos in the world, entertains but at the same time warns its public.
Peter Saul began to paint recognisable characters, and consumer products in the 1950 and 1960, in a cartoon-style. He focused some of his works on the violence of the Vietnam war, which are among the most powerful anti-war works of that era. Although, Saul shared a similarity in form and composition, his subject-matter differs from pure abstraction. Often associated with the Pop Art movement, Peter Saul does not claim commitment to any particular artistic movement. His subject turned in the 70s towards crucifixion, war and politics, increasing his caustic and sarcastic allusions to American culture. Peter Saul lived in Europe for almost ten years where he made important encounters, including that of the artist Robert Matta, who put him in touch with his first American merchant, Allan Frumklin, before returning to the USA where he lives now. Saul’s paintings recurrently appear in major group exhibitions at renown institutions in America such as the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, The Met Breuer, New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York as well as in Europe in the Musée d’Art Contemporain, in the Shirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt. Today, Saul’s works are detained among others, in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York the Dallas Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, the Center Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.