The Art and Beauty of Olive Oil Tins

Ok, so maybe when I was a kid I was not exactly like other kids. I didn't really go for baseball or football. My Mother told me that I could draw long before I could talk. I was an artist and a sculptor my early life and then became a photographer. Art has always attracted me--good art, that is.

So what does this have to do with olive oil tins? Well, growing up we always bought our olive oils in metal, rectangular tin cans. Most of them had amazing beautiful graphics decorating them. Imagine that... the same thing that made my Mother's meatballs taste great, also had some dreamy, other worldly art on the outside of the tin. I couldn't resist. I loved the classical scenes or Old Italy, family crests and heralds, the fancy script fonts used in the words, the scroll work borders and those amazing, bold Italian colors. To me, the images spoke of far away places. Some of the artwork actually looked three dimensional to my young artist eyes... but I didn't know if they were popping out into my world or trying to pull me into theirs...

Here's a little sampling of some wonderful olive oil tins... Enjoy. 

--Jerry Finzi

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