Minnesota Hobbies: Caricature Carving - Using an Apple for Your Carving Project
Apple Carving by Shep Shapiro
Isadore "Shep" Shapiro
Since I have a yard that contains many established apple trees and only so many people who can come and get apples, I decided to research new possibilities for apple use. When my father passed away in 2012, I had to sort through his things and found an article written in the mid 1960s about a man who carved incredible caricatures using apples as his carving base.
He had been visiting his mother in the hospital and carved a face on an apple to pass the time. I googled the name in the article and found that he had passed away in 1993 at the age of 79. He was from Minnesota.
I went to eBay and found that today, some 45 plus years later, his apples are being sold on auctions. The workmanship is incredible. It's an apple. A dried and preserved apple.
The apples were marketed by Marshall Field & Co., C.D. Peacock & Co. and Alfred Dunhill as well as outlets in Amsterdam and Milan, Italy. They are still available, in 2015, on eBay.
What an incredible tribute!