Original Cream of Wheat Art displayed at Sweetwaters Coffee & Tea downtown

An art exhibit about a hot breakfast cereal with origins in Grand Forks is displayed at Sweetwaters Coffee & Tea downtown in the Olive Ann Hotel. On view are four original paintings from a century ago that chronicle an innovative advertising campaign used to promote Cream of Wheat created by some the country’s most important and renown artists of the time. This is the second grouping of four original Cream of Wheat that has been exhibited since January of 2024.

Art collector Bruce Gjovig of Grand Forks purchased 13 original works of Cream of Wheat art to share with the Greater Grand Forks community since 1) Cream of Wheat was founded in Grand Forks in 1890, 2) this was the nation’s first hot breakfast cereal in the nation (innovation), and 3) Cream of Wheat was a innovative leader in advertising art to sell, brand and market their products starting the “Golden Age of Illustration” in the early 20th Century moving advertising from text intensive to visual art. This art movement coincided with the first availability of four-color printing in magazines and advertising. 

“Emery Mapes was one of the three original entrepreneurs behind of Cream of Wheat in Grand Forks, which started out as a flour mill,” Gjovig said. “In the Financial Panic of 1893, Cream of Wheat nearly closed, but the innovation that kept the company alive was making a hot breakfast cereal,” Gjovig added.  

Mapes was very interested in fine art and commissioned some of the most popular artists and illustrators of the time to create works which became advertisements in such magazines as Ladies Home Journal, Saturday Evening Post, Good Housekeeping, McCall’s, National Geographic, Colliers, Needlecraft, and other national magazines targeting mothers. Mapes commissioned some of nation’s finest artists because “if art is worth doing, it worth doing well.” Gjovig’s art collection includes work by Edward Brewer, Frank Hoffman, Haddon Sundbloom, Leslie Thrasher, JA Cahill, and Frederick Mizen.  Readers cut the Cream of Wheat ads our of the magazines and hung them as artworks in their homes, extending the marketing reach.

Emery Mapes became a national leader in advertising, marketing, and branding. His advertising innovations include not only the artworks replacing text-intensive advertisements, but also paying for the advertisements based on audited circulation numbers, not copies of magazines printed, which became the industry standard.

Gjovig said, “I was looking for a good place to exhibit these works of art to share with the public. Sweetwater Coffee at Olive Ann was ideal as it was in a building with historic significance downtown.” A free booklet is available at the coffee shop on the history of Cream of Wheat and the art.

Article in the Grand Forks Herald: https://epaper.grandforksherald.com/infinity/article_popover_share.aspx?guid=f645d7c9-5d8e-433b-80ac-745836d97551&share=true