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Lot Essay
“When I was about 8 years old, he gave me a little toy bulldozer and scraper and cars, and invited me to go and make this little world out in the backyard. And, for some reason or other, it was a very intriguing and memorable thing to do. I had this earth place where I could make roads, tunnels, little buildings, and trees and make my own world, and I've remained interested in the city as a human enterprise, and the pile of human tracks it contains and the byways of living and moving.” W. Thiebaud, quoted in an interview with Richard Wollheim, Wayne Thiebaud: Cityscapes, San Francisco, 1993, n.p.
Downhill Intersection from 2010 is a venture into the exploratory mind and palette of Wayne Thiebaud. Suspended at a crossroads of experience and desire in his exploration of cityscapes, Thiebaud produced a conversation between traditional realism and modern abstraction in his works. Growing up in and around California, Thiebaud was all too familiar with the chaotic, roller coaster-like streets of San Francisco. However, he wanted to portray them in a manner that appeared even more dramatic in comparison to real life. In order to adequately capture this, when Thiebaud bought a second home on Potrero Hill, a sunny, hilly area with bay and skyline views, he set about constructing the hilly streets of San Francisco in a style akin to his dessert series, with more theatricality than reality. Thiebaud's San Francisco streetscapes were mesmerizing with abrupt ridges, intense diagonal lines, and slow curves, revealing the intricacies of form and design ingrained in his technique. The thick impastoed inflections of pigment guide the work's luminosity, inviting viewers into Thiebaud's compositions filled with the pulse of life, asking viewers to look both ways before crossing into his dark, asphalt-painted streets.
The meticulous precision of Californian buildings and landscapes reveals his curiosity in representation. Thiebaud's masterful technique and respect to abstraction as a device are starkly indicated by focusing on compositional control, atmospheric color, and light rather than simply line. His ability to capture the evocative, climactic scenes of intersections began from the desire to commend what past artists had captured when constructing cityscapes. Drawing pad in hand, Thiebaud made a multitude of drawings, rivaling the working method of his idols Edward Hopper and Richard Diebenkorn. This composite technique allows Thiebaud to blend the reality of his vision with past influence. When investigating different locations to cultivate this vision, San Francisco was chosen due to its captivating topography, it being an outstanding inspiration for exaggerating spatial dynamics and exploring the complexities of color and form. The plunging streets and wide-eyed amazement enraptured Thiebaud to the splendor of architecture and engineering that coincides within the city’s streets. From this emerged Thiebaud's ability to compose a symphony of colors, light, and form, constructing the picture first and the descriptive function of the work after.
Beyond the vanishing streets, Thiebaud creates a vertical and skewed horizon line similar to Diebenkorn, exaggerating the hills that seem to roll up and down beyond the limits of the canvas. Thiebaud ensures this scene's shapes and vivid colors are not perceived as merely abstract forms in his conceptual renderings of the city's buildings, parks, streets, and trees. The structure of the work is usually built upon with heavy brushstrokes of paint adding choppy textures and brushwork to the painting, as if one was traveling downhill with Thiebaud. Dark streets and trees are highlighted delicately with subtle shadows, creating a brooding sensation as the palette softens and tensions between landscape, environment, and color emerge. While Thiebaud was subconsciously influenced by the structural force in the work of luminaries such as Franz Kline, his background in stage design and lighting is evident in the theatricality and representation of cityscapes.
Downhill Intersection exhibits the artist's infatuation with urban life. His Uncle Lowell's career as a road maker originally scintillated his appreciation of urban geography. Painted almost forty years after Thiebaud's move to San Francisco, his streetscapes still stand as his most prominent and striking compositions within the past few decades.
Downhill Intersection is an immaculate tribute to the artist's beloved Californian surroundings and a remarkable example of his stylistic streetscape paintings. Illustrating the distinct topography of San Francisco's hilly roads, the present lot synthesizes Thiebaud's career-long investigation of American culture and landscapes. Reinterpreting the traditional genre of landscape painting, it encapsulates the aesthetic and traditional concerns that saturate the artist’s cityscapes. He explores non-objective investigation with shape, color, and composition, his in-depth knowledge of color and form arrangement readily displayed in Downhill Intersection, making this composition the ultimate example of Thiebaud at his very best.
Downhill Intersection from 2010 is a venture into the exploratory mind and palette of Wayne Thiebaud. Suspended at a crossroads of experience and desire in his exploration of cityscapes, Thiebaud produced a conversation between traditional realism and modern abstraction in his works. Growing up in and around California, Thiebaud was all too familiar with the chaotic, roller coaster-like streets of San Francisco. However, he wanted to portray them in a manner that appeared even more dramatic in comparison to real life. In order to adequately capture this, when Thiebaud bought a second home on Potrero Hill, a sunny, hilly area with bay and skyline views, he set about constructing the hilly streets of San Francisco in a style akin to his dessert series, with more theatricality than reality. Thiebaud's San Francisco streetscapes were mesmerizing with abrupt ridges, intense diagonal lines, and slow curves, revealing the intricacies of form and design ingrained in his technique. The thick impastoed inflections of pigment guide the work's luminosity, inviting viewers into Thiebaud's compositions filled with the pulse of life, asking viewers to look both ways before crossing into his dark, asphalt-painted streets.
The meticulous precision of Californian buildings and landscapes reveals his curiosity in representation. Thiebaud's masterful technique and respect to abstraction as a device are starkly indicated by focusing on compositional control, atmospheric color, and light rather than simply line. His ability to capture the evocative, climactic scenes of intersections began from the desire to commend what past artists had captured when constructing cityscapes. Drawing pad in hand, Thiebaud made a multitude of drawings, rivaling the working method of his idols Edward Hopper and Richard Diebenkorn. This composite technique allows Thiebaud to blend the reality of his vision with past influence. When investigating different locations to cultivate this vision, San Francisco was chosen due to its captivating topography, it being an outstanding inspiration for exaggerating spatial dynamics and exploring the complexities of color and form. The plunging streets and wide-eyed amazement enraptured Thiebaud to the splendor of architecture and engineering that coincides within the city’s streets. From this emerged Thiebaud's ability to compose a symphony of colors, light, and form, constructing the picture first and the descriptive function of the work after.
Beyond the vanishing streets, Thiebaud creates a vertical and skewed horizon line similar to Diebenkorn, exaggerating the hills that seem to roll up and down beyond the limits of the canvas. Thiebaud ensures this scene's shapes and vivid colors are not perceived as merely abstract forms in his conceptual renderings of the city's buildings, parks, streets, and trees. The structure of the work is usually built upon with heavy brushstrokes of paint adding choppy textures and brushwork to the painting, as if one was traveling downhill with Thiebaud. Dark streets and trees are highlighted delicately with subtle shadows, creating a brooding sensation as the palette softens and tensions between landscape, environment, and color emerge. While Thiebaud was subconsciously influenced by the structural force in the work of luminaries such as Franz Kline, his background in stage design and lighting is evident in the theatricality and representation of cityscapes.
Downhill Intersection exhibits the artist's infatuation with urban life. His Uncle Lowell's career as a road maker originally scintillated his appreciation of urban geography. Painted almost forty years after Thiebaud's move to San Francisco, his streetscapes still stand as his most prominent and striking compositions within the past few decades.
Downhill Intersection is an immaculate tribute to the artist's beloved Californian surroundings and a remarkable example of his stylistic streetscape paintings. Illustrating the distinct topography of San Francisco's hilly roads, the present lot synthesizes Thiebaud's career-long investigation of American culture and landscapes. Reinterpreting the traditional genre of landscape painting, it encapsulates the aesthetic and traditional concerns that saturate the artist’s cityscapes. He explores non-objective investigation with shape, color, and composition, his in-depth knowledge of color and form arrangement readily displayed in Downhill Intersection, making this composition the ultimate example of Thiebaud at his very best.