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AIRFIELD, CALIF. — Large scale portraits of famous personalities and classic Americana subjects all made in mosaics of thousands of Jelly Belly® jelly beans are in the private collection of Jelly Belly Candy Co. The permanent artistic creations were commissioned by the manufacturer of Jelly Belly beans, and selections may be seen in traveling exhibits and on free public tours of the company’s public tours in California and Wisconsin.
The Jelly Belly Collection includes portraits of Elvis Presley, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Ronald Reagan, Amelia Earhart, Laurel & Hardy, James Dean, a Native American chief, Pope John Paul II, Martin Luther King Jr., the Statue of Liberty, the Marilyn Monroe, Asian “good luck” Dragon and others.
A portrait of former President Ronald Reagan is currently on display at the Reagan Library in Simi, Calif. The six-foot tall portrait of Lady Liberty was selected by the American Crafts Museum for its 1988 show on “The Confectioner’s Art” which traveled across the country for two years. A dual portrait of President Reagan and Vice President George Bush was displayed at the Republican State Convention in San Francisco in 1984. The portrait of Abraham Lincoln was first unveiled by Governor James Edgar in the Illinois Governor’s Office where Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address resides.
In 2010 the Guinness World Record was set in Shanghai for the largest candy art. The 39-foot-long art piece is made of 629,000 Jelly Belly beans and will be on display at the 2010 Shanghai Expo.
Jelly Belly Art was the brainchild of San Francisco artist Peter Rocha, the self-proclaimed king of Jelly Belly art in 1982. After President Reagan publicly expressed his fondness for Jelly Belly beans, artist Peter Rocha tried some himself. He was immediately impressed with the range and brilliance of the colors of the beans.
He began with rough pencil drawings using photographs of the subjects. He then painted a tight color composition and finished his unusual work by applying a mosaic of Jelly Belly beans.
The first portrait, appropriately of President Reagan, took Rocha over six months to complete as he painstakingly dipped each bean in the glue and placed it in a mosaic pattern. He ultimately refined his process, developing a faster method and more polished look by preparing the beans in the trays, applying them in groups of colors and correctly placing the final beans with chopsticks or by hand.
Rocha retired in 2000 and his nephew Roger Rocha, took up the calling. Roger Rocha is a San Francisco artist and grandson of contemporary artist Clifford Stills. He apprenticed to learn the jelly bean artistry with his uncle Peter, who created the first piece of Jelly Belly art in 1982. Roger created the 2002 portraits of Queen Elizabeth II, the iconic Marilyn Monroe and George Clooney portraits which can be seen on the company’s art gallery.
In 2006, Chicago artist Tracy Ostmann was commissioned to make two portraits of the animated character in The Ant Bully movie. In 2002 she created art pieces for the Shedd Aquarium, where she made a clown fish, trigger fish and shark portraits from thousands of Jelly Belly beans. She also made a portrait of Martin Luther King Jr. for the University of Pennsylvania.
In 2009 Martinez, Calif., artist Kristen Cumings was commissioned to make a tribute to the California grizzly bear. This 6-foot tall portrait, made of 14,000 Jelly Belly beans, is the first Jelly Belly Art piece to be made in public, when the artist created it over several weeks at the “It’s a Candy Nation” exhibit at the California State Fair.
The Jelly Belly Candy Co. introduced the Jelly Belly bean in 1976. The company currently makes over 100 year-round and seasonal gourmet candies at its company headquarters in Fairfield, Calif., and two additional manufacturing facilities. The company is a family-owned business now in its fifth and sixth generation of candy making. Additional information is available at JellyBelly.com.
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Each piece, created over the course of several months, took up to 100 hours to complete. Cumings worked on small sections at a time and placed each Jelly Belly jelly bean by hand using mosaic-making techniques. When finished, the final non-edible work of art is sealed to protect the Jelly Belly jelly beans from damage.
The concept of Jelly Belly Bean Art was born in 1982 when San Francisco artist Peter Rocha created a portrait of President Ronald Reagan – a famous fan of Jelly Belly jelly beans. The Masterpieces of Jelly Belly Bean Art Collection is the first collection of re-created fine arts classics that was inspired by the Mona Lisa replica which Cumings created in 2010.
After its exhibition at The Children’s Museum of the Upstate, the Masterpieces of Jelly Belly Bean Art Collection will join other Jelly Belly bean artworks on display at Jelly Belly Candy Company Visitor Center in Fairfield, Calif., that included portraits of Elvis Presley, Abraham Lincoln, and the Statue of Liberty. View the collection online at 
