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Lot Essay
A group of paintings spanning nearly a decade, Tomato Bowl (2003), Jewelry Display (1976/1997) and Ridge Valley Farms Study (2001) elegantly showcase Wayne Thiebaud’s talents as a still life painter known for drawing attention to the intricacy and beauty of everyday objects as well as his mastery of landscape. Within a matter of brushstrokes, Thiebaud sweeps his brush seamlessly from one genre to another, first bringing his viewer high above an expansive landscape, where only the outline of a tree or shadow of a ploughed field are discernible, before delivering them within the curvature of a ring, bouncing color towards an invisible light source.
In Jewelry Display, nineteen rings sit on a flat, stark-white surface in a pyramidal configuration. Although the rings are all different, ranging in sizes, shapes, colors, their overall layout is concise and deliberately spaced. Moving away from the natural scene in Ridge Valley Farms Study, Thiebaud chooses a rather normal man-made object to be the focus. Completed in 1997, Jewelry Display calls on some of Thiebaud’s trademark pieces such as Confections or Dessert Tray; similar in the way he picks a relatively simple object and places it on an unassuming background using the repetition so common amongst his Pop forebears to imply a different yet equally effective desire of American life towards the ordered indulgence. Jewelry Display takes that and pairs it with the repetitive nature of some of his other work like Pie Counter, Three Machines or Three Cones. Showing images in triads is a common technique used to create clean compositions, also referred to as the “rule of thirds.” Finding its roots as far back as the Renaissance, the rule of thirds nudges its way into the classical religious tripartite motif; in Masaccio’s Holy Trinity (1426-1428), the triangular position of the figures mirrors the very spirit the artist sought to make plain. Thiebaud follows suit here by suggesting a clean line down the middle going from one ring, to three and then ending with six. The shape it creates also mimics that of linear perspective; one ring in the back that gradually pushes out to six, thus elevating a subject of vanity to sacred status.
Each unique ring is placed facing the viewer directly suggesting the viewer is leaning down, as if to examine each ring more carefully. Affected by some unseen light source, each ring casts its own vibrant shadow, acting almost as a prism to spread the artist’s chosen palette of color on the otherwise simple surface. By making a piece such as this, Thiebaud draws attention to the beauty that exists in ordinary things by showing the variety they can have sitting side by side with nothing to distract the viewer’s gaze. In Ridge Valley Farms Study, it was the grander swaths of nature, whereas in this piece, the focus is narrowed to a smaller, more refined spectrum.
“[My subject matter] was a genuine sort of experience that came out of my life, particularly the American world in which I was privileged to be. It just seemed to be the most genuine thing which I had done” (W. Thiebaud).
Each work in this collection, including the artist’s mastery in printmaking and on paper, exemplifies the skill of Wayne Thiebaud throughout different moments in his career. His work delves deeper than the Pop art genre so popular in the latter half of the twentieth century. Time has proven that his paintings are more than just a snapshot of consumer goods, but a celebration of life and the intricacies that exist within even its greatest simplicities. His subject matter is carefully thought out and elegantly deployed, seemingly always inviting the viewer inward. His body of work encompasses a culture frozen in time, living on through his brushstrokes and distinct color palette, making it so not even a bowl of tomatoes will be overlooked when analyzing the canon of art history and the experience of being alive.
About the Collector:
Throughout her long and fruitful life, Frances Hamilton White (1933-2021) made an immeasurable impact both on the people with whom she surrounded herself and those who never knew her. Growing up in West Virginia, it was not long before Frances found her destined home on the West Coast, moving first to La Mesa in Southern California before settling a few miles north in Cardiff. Taking an interest less in any one philanthropic cause and more in humanity as a whole, Frances ensured the existence of the Hamilton Glaucoma Center at the Shiley Eye Institute of UC San Diego, jumpstarted a home-delivered meal service for patients affected by terminal illness, saw to the ongoing educational initiatives of institutions meaningful to her locale and dedicated herself to nature’s healing power through the Nature Collective. In all this, Frances still found time to appreciate visual culture, intentionally supporting artists native to her adopted state and sitting on the board of the Mingei International Museum in San Diego. A faithful patron of the Paul Thiebaud Gallery in San Francisco, Frances collected widely, often buying directly from the artists’ studio, as in the case of the spectacular Thiebauds in her collection. Public donations aside, Frances is remembered as a delightful person, loved by those who had the pleasure of coming into her orbit. Frances’s legacy, thus, is one of committed kindness to a community of creators about which she deeply cared.
In Jewelry Display, nineteen rings sit on a flat, stark-white surface in a pyramidal configuration. Although the rings are all different, ranging in sizes, shapes, colors, their overall layout is concise and deliberately spaced. Moving away from the natural scene in Ridge Valley Farms Study, Thiebaud chooses a rather normal man-made object to be the focus. Completed in 1997, Jewelry Display calls on some of Thiebaud’s trademark pieces such as Confections or Dessert Tray; similar in the way he picks a relatively simple object and places it on an unassuming background using the repetition so common amongst his Pop forebears to imply a different yet equally effective desire of American life towards the ordered indulgence. Jewelry Display takes that and pairs it with the repetitive nature of some of his other work like Pie Counter, Three Machines or Three Cones. Showing images in triads is a common technique used to create clean compositions, also referred to as the “rule of thirds.” Finding its roots as far back as the Renaissance, the rule of thirds nudges its way into the classical religious tripartite motif; in Masaccio’s Holy Trinity (1426-1428), the triangular position of the figures mirrors the very spirit the artist sought to make plain. Thiebaud follows suit here by suggesting a clean line down the middle going from one ring, to three and then ending with six. The shape it creates also mimics that of linear perspective; one ring in the back that gradually pushes out to six, thus elevating a subject of vanity to sacred status.
Each unique ring is placed facing the viewer directly suggesting the viewer is leaning down, as if to examine each ring more carefully. Affected by some unseen light source, each ring casts its own vibrant shadow, acting almost as a prism to spread the artist’s chosen palette of color on the otherwise simple surface. By making a piece such as this, Thiebaud draws attention to the beauty that exists in ordinary things by showing the variety they can have sitting side by side with nothing to distract the viewer’s gaze. In Ridge Valley Farms Study, it was the grander swaths of nature, whereas in this piece, the focus is narrowed to a smaller, more refined spectrum.
“[My subject matter] was a genuine sort of experience that came out of my life, particularly the American world in which I was privileged to be. It just seemed to be the most genuine thing which I had done” (W. Thiebaud).
Each work in this collection, including the artist’s mastery in printmaking and on paper, exemplifies the skill of Wayne Thiebaud throughout different moments in his career. His work delves deeper than the Pop art genre so popular in the latter half of the twentieth century. Time has proven that his paintings are more than just a snapshot of consumer goods, but a celebration of life and the intricacies that exist within even its greatest simplicities. His subject matter is carefully thought out and elegantly deployed, seemingly always inviting the viewer inward. His body of work encompasses a culture frozen in time, living on through his brushstrokes and distinct color palette, making it so not even a bowl of tomatoes will be overlooked when analyzing the canon of art history and the experience of being alive.
About the Collector:
Throughout her long and fruitful life, Frances Hamilton White (1933-2021) made an immeasurable impact both on the people with whom she surrounded herself and those who never knew her. Growing up in West Virginia, it was not long before Frances found her destined home on the West Coast, moving first to La Mesa in Southern California before settling a few miles north in Cardiff. Taking an interest less in any one philanthropic cause and more in humanity as a whole, Frances ensured the existence of the Hamilton Glaucoma Center at the Shiley Eye Institute of UC San Diego, jumpstarted a home-delivered meal service for patients affected by terminal illness, saw to the ongoing educational initiatives of institutions meaningful to her locale and dedicated herself to nature’s healing power through the Nature Collective. In all this, Frances still found time to appreciate visual culture, intentionally supporting artists native to her adopted state and sitting on the board of the Mingei International Museum in San Diego. A faithful patron of the Paul Thiebaud Gallery in San Francisco, Frances collected widely, often buying directly from the artists’ studio, as in the case of the spectacular Thiebauds in her collection. Public donations aside, Frances is remembered as a delightful person, loved by those who had the pleasure of coming into her orbit. Frances’s legacy, thus, is one of committed kindness to a community of creators about which she deeply cared.