Julie Green’s ‘The Last Supper’ Memorializes Hundreds of People’s Final Meals While on Death Row
Julie Green’s expansive ceramic series The Last Supper documents the final meal requests of death row inmates across U.S. prisons between 1999 and 2021. Working with mass-produced platters and plates, Green hand-painted detailed renderings of requested foods in cobalt blue mineral pigment, inscribing each piece with the execution date, state penitentiary, and occasionally the inmate’s own words about their meal. The project originated from a 1999 newspaper account and evolved into hundreds of individual works that humanize capital punishment through intimate domestic imagery. By recording both celebrated cases and obscure stories, many previously undocumented, Green transforms utilitarian ceramics into a memorial spanning over 1,600 U.S. executions. The series reveals patterns of region, race, and economic circumstance through food choices, treating each plate as testimony to dignity within a dehumanizing system. Currently on view at Grand Rapids Art Museum through 2027.
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