“Inspiration often arises from chance,” says Austrian painter Heinz Schönhammer. “Like here, in a Viennese coffeehouse, where a delightful aroma wafted toward me and piqued my curiosity.”
It turned out to be a sandwich.
More specifically, a croque madame. The smell was enough to stop Schönhammer in his tracks — and, eventually, persuade him to spend hours immortalizing the meal in oil paint. He dutifully captured every gooey cascade of Gruyère, every silky fold of ham, every tiny grain of pepper and an improbably perfect egg yolk, until the sandwich became monumental.
The resulting painting, Toust (2026), offered by Signet Contemporary Art, is a reminder that obsession often produces mankind’s strangest creative triumphs. Some artists devote years to perfecting drapery or the human form. Schönhammer’s fixation just happens to involve melted cheese.
The funny thing is that Toust isn’t in on the joke. It never winks at the viewer, and neither does its maker. The sandwich sits for its portrait with remarkable dignity.
Along the way, that earnestness becomes contagious. You stop thinking about whether a croque madame is a worthy subject and start admiring the astonishing conviction behind its portrayal.
Schönhammer describes his approach as “hyperrealism,” but he’s quick to distinguish it from mere imitation.
“Here, the aim is to present things in a cool, matter-of-fact manner,” he explains. “Through this style of depiction, I created a perfect snapshot of the ephemeral.”
The croque madame doesn’t simply look delicious; it looks like the Platonic ideal of deliciousness. “An ideal is not an exact replica,” Schönhammer adds, “but a photorealistic exaggeration — a hyper-sharpened reality.”
The painting’s origin story only adds to its charm. The idea arrived in that café, where a buttery aroma drifted through the room to become Schönhammer’s muse of the moment.
Somewhere between the first whiff and the final brushstroke, a sandwich became unforgettable.
