Especially if Irving Penn says so, one of the 20th-century’s greatest American photographers. He was just 26 years old when editor Alex Libermann commissioned him to do the first cover for top fashion magazine Vogue in 1943. Since then, over the course of 50 years he has also become a master of still life, with his provocative compositions such as the raw steak with egg, butter and a chip in Cholesterol’s revenge, or Turducken, a chicken stuffed in a duck, stuffed in a turkey. With this genre he has united his extensive knowledge of painting (the photograph with a slice of melon and bunch of grapes is a homage to Caravaggio), as well as an almost maniacal yet brilliant taste for detail: an ant walking on the cheese, a grain of pepper, a melon seed. In his pictures even a head of lettuce becomes a sophisticated dish: you just need two spoons, oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, a lemon and a clove of garlic. Until 17 January, the Hamiltons Gallery in London is showing his pictures (from the 1940s to 2000) dedicated to food. E. S.