Torta Napolitana (Neapolitan Pie) - Wayne Thiebaud
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Litografia - 47x47 - 1990
In an attitude similar to artists such as Degas, Gaugin and
Munch, Wayne Thiebaud often sees the discarded trial proof "as the
beginning point of experimentation with the use of hand coloring" (Bill
Berkson, et. al. Vision and Revision:
Hand Colored Prints by Wayne Thiebaud. San Francisco 1991, p. 99).
A trial proof by definition is a kind of experiment in the development of a
print edition, and so focuses the artist's eye on possibilities and directions
for development. For Thiebaud, "it is this potential for change that
captivates me" (Ibid., p.
11). In Neapolitan Pie, 1990,
Thiebaud has enhanced a lithograph with pastel and charcoal, lending the same
subtlety, nuance of light and shadow, changing moods of color, and aura as he
lends to his paintings and directly drawn works on paper. As Bill Berkson
states in Vision and Revision: Hand Colored Prints by
Wayne Thiebaud, “taking a discarded or trial proof of a print
one step further by adding colors and adjusting details is more than a matter
of mere touching up or busy work: the modified object elaborates upon a set
theme and reveals aspects that previously might have been omitted” (Ibid., p. 94). As Thiebaud elaborates he also
illuminates, inviting us to be fully in touch with a reality more vivid than
what we take for granted. Thiebaud makes us look, and look again, to see “with
new eyes that which we thought we knew (Ibid., p.
100).
Wayne Thiebaud has made the mass-produced foods and objects-
excess and uniformity specific to postwar America-into a unique exploration of
color, shadow and form. In his own words, “common objects become strangely
uncommon when removed from their context and ordinary ways of being seen” (Gene
Cooper, Wayne Thiebaud: Survey of Painting 1950-1972,
Long Beach 1972. n.p..). Thiebaud often places his still life subjects on a
white or near white background in order to eliminate the effects that an
environment might have on an object’s true colors. In addition, he invests
great detail and highly specific color in the shadows that his still life
subjects cast, intensifying the presence of the objects in space. In Neapolitan Pie, the pie layers, revealed by the
removal of a generous slice, are bathed in shadow and light, the refined precision
of their edges in counterpoint to the looser background. Ultimately, Thiebaud’s
still lifes “radiate a peculiar emotion that we have sensed before in such
lovely areas of American paint as those fruit bowls in Hopper’s restaurant or
the children’s building blocks in Eakins—a note of yearning, a melancholy
undercurrent of aspiration implanted even in things of pleasure that we
recognize more easily than understand” (Steven A. Nash and Adam Gopnik, Wayne Thiebaud: A Paintings Retrospective, New
York, 2000, p. 40.)
Wayne Thiebaud was born in 1920 in Mesa, Arizona. From
1938-1949 he was a cartoonist and designer in California and New York. He also
served as an artist in the First Motion Pict
ure Unit of the United States Army
Air Forces from 1942-1945. Thiebaud attended San Jose State College (now San
Jose State University) followed by Sacramento State College (now California
State University, Sacramento), where he received his BA in 1951 and his MA in
1952. For over fifty years, Thiebaud has been a fixture of American Art, the
recipient of numerous awards, with highlights including the 1994 National Medal
of Arts, given by the then President Clinton, a 2001 Lifetime Achievement Award
from the American Academy of Design, and a 2007 Bay Area Treasure Award from
the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Thiebaud has been honored with gallery
and museum exhibitions almost every year since 1960, highlighted by a 1985
retrospective at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and a 2001
retrospective that traveled from the de Young Fine Arts Museum of San
Francisco, to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, the Phillips Collection in
Washington D.C., and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Allan Stone began
representing Wayne Thiebaud in 1962, just as he began to develop his most
admired themes. Over the years he rose from relative obscurity as a
miscategorized California Pop artist to one of the most celebrated painters of
the twentieth century. Thiebaud lives and works in Sacramento, California.
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