Kansas 14 April 1965 (1 of 2), Julie Green

These plates are part of Julie Green’s ongoing project The Last Supper, which documents death row inmates’ last meals. There are currently 800 works in the series, which is grouped by state and generally exhibited all together. Final meal requests can provide poignant clues about an inmate, illuminating the state of mind of a person facing death. Green renders their stories in cobalt blue paint fired onto ceramic plates. On the two plates for Kansas 14 April 1965, she painted French fries, garlic bread, ice cream, and strawberries with whipped cream. These plates illustrate the final meals of Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, whose stories are detailed by Truman Capote in his non-fiction novel In Cold Blood about murders that occurred in Kansas.
Green states: “These two Kansas meals are identical. This is because rather than a final meal request, the two men were simply provided a meal. This is often the case in historical menus, as well as in Texas, where since 2011 inmates are not given a choice and instead are served the standard prison meal of the day.”