.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
For over half a century, Wayne Thiebaud has produced works that are a painterly investigation of American life through its objects, people, streets and landscapes, always realized in a deliciously painted but highly controlled manner. Lunch Table is an exquisite example of his acute ability to transform simple objects into sprawling vistas. The mesmerizing rows of delectable confections and savory plates are visually appealing while also fostering powerful sensations of nostalgia. Situated on the artist's characteristic white background, the fluff of meringue, the smooth surface of pudding, the crisp melon, and the neat sandwiches play on the surface of the paper by means of Thiebaud's characteristically deliberate use of color and light. Thiebaud looks for larger truths in small gestures, evidence that some of his smallest works are amongst the most tantalizing, with each precise brushstroke producing so much detail that even the smallest work comes alive with excitement and color.
Formally this work bears all the hallmark of Thiebaud's unconventional sense of composition. Positioned slightly off center, the lusciousness of the subject is contrasted by deep lavender shadows next to each plate. This odd juxtaposition of the comforting and familiar with the harshness of the situation embody qualities which are apparent in Thiebaud's very best work. Despite the familiarity of the subject matter there is often something about his work that is unnerving. The contrast between the soft, saccharine nature of the assorted dishes and the strict geometry of the shadows is striking; Thiebaud's masterful paint handling technique orchestrates these varying elements into a symphony of paint and color.
The present work was painted in 1964, just two years after the artist’s first solo show at Allan Stone Gallery in New York, marking one of the most important periods in Thiebaud’s career when a cherished friendship began between them. This first solo show stirred tremendous attention in the New York art world, attended by artists such as Andy Warhol, Barnett Newman, and Elaine de Kooning, among others. Thiebaud soon achieved national recognition as well as commercial success. In the same year, his work was included in the pivotal Pop Art group exhibition curated by Walter Hopps at the Pasadena Art Museum along with fellow Pop artists Ed Ruscha, Andy Warhol, and Roy Lichtenstein. As a result of his superb depiction of mass-produced objects during the 1960s, art critics and art historians constantly coupled Thiebaud's works with the concurrent Pop Art movement. However, Thiebaud's concentration on commonplace objects dates before the flourishing of this art movement, and the artist himself resisted such categorization: "I have always exhibited in Pop Art shows, but I don't see myself as being in any way central to that category" (Ibid., p. 28).
What Lunch Table makes clear is that Thiebaud’s art is about more than mere depictions of consumer goods. It is about a celebration and contemplation of life, of color, of painting in its many forms, no matter the scale. This is an exemplary early work by the artist, a snapshot of a moment in time when the work that would sustain him for the rest of his career finally came to fruition in its mature form. Thiebaud and his work tie us together by the simple treats that we can all enjoy, creating a unique blend of realism and abstraction, in which personal remembrance and latent symbolism intertwine. In many ways, he is the archetypal American artist, and it is thanks to the subtlety and focus of Thiebaud’s draughtsmanship and the vivacity of his coloring that these overlooked commonplaces of daily life live on in elevated form today.
Thiebaud's images of food have become some of the most enduring images of the post-war period, and examples of such works from this period are included in many prestigious museum collections. These include Pie Counter, 1961 in the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and French Pastries, 1963 in the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. One iconic piece, the 1964 oil painting of the same title as the present work, Lunch Table, is in the collection of the Cantor Arts Center at Sandford. It is almost identical to this work, but on canvas and greater in scale, exhibiting the same rich, saturated colors and glowing in an almost fluorescent manner. Works such as Lunch Table are central to Thiebaud's exquisite observation of what he sees and what he feels: "Drawing, to me, is a kind of inquiring research tool being willing to draw so long and so much and so well and get such a sense of what things were about" (Ibid., p. 8).
Thiebaud's art dives deeper than the concepts of mass cultural symbols and interchangeability advocated by Pop artists. He juxtaposes the familiarity and heterogeneity of common objects. In Lunch Table, even though each matching dish on a table shares similar features, they all look different from each other. As the artist elucidates: "It interests me because of the consciousness of simultaneity—of how much alike we are, how close we are to one another and how rare it is to come across distinctions of any sort. It is one of the ways I think about art. It has the capacity to build alternatives in a peculiar way—it is full of little discriminations and little insights which are terribly important and only a very few individuals ever think about them" (Ibid., p. 26). The obsessive repetition of everyday objects extends beyond the mere reflection of a modern society and centers its questions upon the ambivalence of closeness and distance inherent in the human condition.
Lunch Table captures the complexity that combines Thiebaud's traditional approach and contemporary vision. It demonstrates the painter's incorporation of the history of art from Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin's still-lifes to Hopper's landscape and de Kooning's abstraction to Warhol's mechanical reproduction. As the artist acknowledges: "To feel that you've been privileged to be part of that is terrific" (Op. cit., 15).
Formally this work bears all the hallmark of Thiebaud's unconventional sense of composition. Positioned slightly off center, the lusciousness of the subject is contrasted by deep lavender shadows next to each plate. This odd juxtaposition of the comforting and familiar with the harshness of the situation embody qualities which are apparent in Thiebaud's very best work. Despite the familiarity of the subject matter there is often something about his work that is unnerving. The contrast between the soft, saccharine nature of the assorted dishes and the strict geometry of the shadows is striking; Thiebaud's masterful paint handling technique orchestrates these varying elements into a symphony of paint and color.
The present work was painted in 1964, just two years after the artist’s first solo show at Allan Stone Gallery in New York, marking one of the most important periods in Thiebaud’s career when a cherished friendship began between them. This first solo show stirred tremendous attention in the New York art world, attended by artists such as Andy Warhol, Barnett Newman, and Elaine de Kooning, among others. Thiebaud soon achieved national recognition as well as commercial success. In the same year, his work was included in the pivotal Pop Art group exhibition curated by Walter Hopps at the Pasadena Art Museum along with fellow Pop artists Ed Ruscha, Andy Warhol, and Roy Lichtenstein. As a result of his superb depiction of mass-produced objects during the 1960s, art critics and art historians constantly coupled Thiebaud's works with the concurrent Pop Art movement. However, Thiebaud's concentration on commonplace objects dates before the flourishing of this art movement, and the artist himself resisted such categorization: "I have always exhibited in Pop Art shows, but I don't see myself as being in any way central to that category" (Ibid., p. 28).
What Lunch Table makes clear is that Thiebaud’s art is about more than mere depictions of consumer goods. It is about a celebration and contemplation of life, of color, of painting in its many forms, no matter the scale. This is an exemplary early work by the artist, a snapshot of a moment in time when the work that would sustain him for the rest of his career finally came to fruition in its mature form. Thiebaud and his work tie us together by the simple treats that we can all enjoy, creating a unique blend of realism and abstraction, in which personal remembrance and latent symbolism intertwine. In many ways, he is the archetypal American artist, and it is thanks to the subtlety and focus of Thiebaud’s draughtsmanship and the vivacity of his coloring that these overlooked commonplaces of daily life live on in elevated form today.
Thiebaud's images of food have become some of the most enduring images of the post-war period, and examples of such works from this period are included in many prestigious museum collections. These include Pie Counter, 1961 in the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and French Pastries, 1963 in the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. One iconic piece, the 1964 oil painting of the same title as the present work, Lunch Table, is in the collection of the Cantor Arts Center at Sandford. It is almost identical to this work, but on canvas and greater in scale, exhibiting the same rich, saturated colors and glowing in an almost fluorescent manner. Works such as Lunch Table are central to Thiebaud's exquisite observation of what he sees and what he feels: "Drawing, to me, is a kind of inquiring research tool being willing to draw so long and so much and so well and get such a sense of what things were about" (Ibid., p. 8).
Thiebaud's art dives deeper than the concepts of mass cultural symbols and interchangeability advocated by Pop artists. He juxtaposes the familiarity and heterogeneity of common objects. In Lunch Table, even though each matching dish on a table shares similar features, they all look different from each other. As the artist elucidates: "It interests me because of the consciousness of simultaneity—of how much alike we are, how close we are to one another and how rare it is to come across distinctions of any sort. It is one of the ways I think about art. It has the capacity to build alternatives in a peculiar way—it is full of little discriminations and little insights which are terribly important and only a very few individuals ever think about them" (Ibid., p. 26). The obsessive repetition of everyday objects extends beyond the mere reflection of a modern society and centers its questions upon the ambivalence of closeness and distance inherent in the human condition.
Lunch Table captures the complexity that combines Thiebaud's traditional approach and contemporary vision. It demonstrates the painter's incorporation of the history of art from Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin's still-lifes to Hopper's landscape and de Kooning's abstraction to Warhol's mechanical reproduction. As the artist acknowledges: "To feel that you've been privileged to be part of that is terrific" (Op. cit., 15).