What does an exhibition taste like? At the Dixon this year, Chef Phillip Dewayne gave us four answers.
For our 50th anniversary, the galleries have told stories about artists, gathering, and the collection we’ve built over five decades. At Park + Cherry, Chef Phillip created a menu for each of four exhibitions, giving visitors another way to experience what they had seen on the walls. A visit could begin with art, continue over lunch, and turn into a conversation that lasted long after the plates were cleared!
We began the year with Black Artists in America: From the Bicentennial to September 11, the final installment of the Dixon’s three-part series.
The exhibition explored the range of styles and perspectives in African American art during the last quarter of the twentieth century. Chef Phillip’s menu drew on familiar ingredients and layered flavors, like gumbo verde with chicken, smoked turkey, greens, and okra, and a sorghum grain bowl with sweet potato and black-eyed peas. Sweet potato pound cake offered a sweet finish!
Next came Mary Sims: A Retrospective, the first museum survey of the Memphis artist’s remarkable career.
Sims’s work moved from carefully composed prints and portraits to exuberant still lifes filled with flowers, animals, toys, and textiles. Chef Phillip’s menu met that energy with color of its own! “Where the Garden Meets the Sun” paired peaches and red and green tomatoes with burrata and basil, while “Everything Green, Still Becoming” brought cucumber, green apple, herbs, and citrus together in a chilled soup. Even the names invited guests to recall the images and ideas they had encountered in the galleries.
Summer brought Café Society: Art and Sociability in Paris, 1855–1914. The exhibition explored the French café as a place where artists gathered, talked, and found inspiration!
This time, the connection between gallery and table felt especially close. Chef Phillip’s menu included French onion soup, a Niçoise salad called “The Paris Luncheon,” and a croque monsieur named “The Socialite.” Guests could finish with “The Last Conversation,” a crème brûlée whose name captured the pleasure of staying at the table just a little longer.
Now, An Investment in Pleasure: Fifty Years of the Dixon Gallery and Gardens Collection brings the anniversary year full circle.
The exhibition follows the Dixon’s permanent collection from the original bequest through its newest acquisitions. For this menu, Chef Phillip looked back, too, assembling a seasonal selection of favorite dishes from his years at the Dixon. Butternut squash soup, a warm farro salad, short rib grilled cheese, and bourbon bread pudding make the café feel like part of the celebration: comforting, generous, and ready to welcome someone back!
Four exhibitions and four menus took a lot of hands.
While the artists and works in the galleries inspired Chef Phillip’s dishes, colleagues across the Dixon helped bring each exhibition and visitor experience to life. This anniversary year has been a team effort!
As we celebrate 50 years, we’re grateful for everyone who has joined us at the Dixon— and for the chance to make time for art, food, and each other.
