August 23, 2023 – Butter Sculptures

The Great New York State Fair kicks off today! One of the biggest attractions (besides the $1 baked potato and colorful chickens) is the butter sculpture. This year is the 55th anniversary of this beloved State Fair tradition. The sculpture is made from 800 pounds of butter, which was provided by a dairy producer in Batavia. The theme this year is “Dairy Day Every Day A Healthy Way – Keeping Kids’ Health on Track” and depicts a train being conducted by a cow. After the Fair is over, the butter will be recycled into renewable energy at a farm in Livingston County.
Butter carving is actually an ancient craft. The earliest known reference to a butter sculpture dates back to 1536. A cook for Pope Pius V put on a feast made up of 9 scenes elaborately carved out of food. There were apparently several butter sculptures at the feast, including a camel, elephant, and Hercules fighting a lion.
The earliest butter sculpture as public art can be traced back to the Centennial Exhibition in 1876. That year, Caroline Shaw Brooks from Helena, Arkansas, displayed basrelief sculpture she called Dreaming Iolanthe. She was the first known American sculptor working with the medium of butter, and became known as “The Butter Woman”. She had no formal artistic training, but as a farmer’s wife, she did spend many years making butter. She made her first butter sculpture in 1867, sculpting into shapes like shells, faces, and animals. After the Centennial Exhibition, she ended up studying in Paris and Florence, eventually becoming a professional sculptor. She switched mediums to marble but did still occasionally make butter art.
Butter sculpting’s heyday was from around 1890 to 1930. This is when refrigeration became more widely available and the American dairy industry started promoting butter sculpture as a way to compete against synthetic substitutes like margarine. The first butter cow sculpture at a state fair was the Ohio State Fair in 1903.
Contrary to popular belief, most butter sculptures you see at State Fairs aren’t solid butter. They start as wooden or wire frames, and the butter is added layer by layer until the sculpture is complete.
Learn more here.