Milk and Cookies Poster

Milk and Cookies is painted in thick, visible brushwork on a deep red-brown ground. A glass jar with a domed lid holds a stack of cookies and sits beside a bottle of milk with the white laid on in one opaque sweep. In front of them a white plate is piled with chocolate chip cookies, one broken in half, and another cookie floats above the jar at the top of the picture where the painter has let it hang rather than find a surface. A blue and cream checked cloth is draped behind, its lines wavering where the brush turned. Nothing is drawn tightly, and the paint stays rough enough to read as paint.

The dark red ground does the work here, so a warm frame suits it: walnut, dark oak or a deep stain. Black is sharp but cools the picture and white fights it. It belongs in a kitchen or a dining room, above a counter or near where the tin lives, and it carries a small wall on its own. Pair it with checked textiles, enamel and wood rather than steel.