拍品專文
Wayne Thiebaud's Coming and Going is the result of a life-long appreciation for the objects, people and landscapes that surround us. Using this ability to appreciate a sense of beauty in almost everything he sees, Thiebaud transforms a thunderous 10-lane San Francisco highway that roars through his neighborhood into a symphony of color and movement.
His unique ability to see beauty in objects and landscapes that have traditionally been overlooked by artists, combined with an intense love of the act of painting, has resulted in a work that encourage us to examine our surroundings with renewed vigor and delight.
Thiebaud's landscapes and cityscapes are as central to his oeuvre as his still-life depictions of cakes and candy, given that they also allow him to indulge in his passion for the luscious application of paint in a way that adds both texture and depth to the work. In choosing the freeway as the subject of the present lot, Thiebaud is also continuing with his lifelong fascination with the images and objects that depict modern America. The freeway is as much a part of American culture as his other favorite subjects he lovingly depicted in Cakes, 1963, Pies, Pies, Pies, 1961, and Candy Counter, 1969.
His characteristric candy-colored palatte is evident in the warm, buttery yellow that bathes the freeway in the colors of a west coast sunset. This is then complimented with sparkling sapphire blues, emerald greens and violets used to depict the vehicles - the multi-colored cars and trucks packed onto the arcing roadway reminiscent of the candies packed into the gumball machines of his iconic Jawbreaker Machine, 1963.
In addition to its pop culture references, much of Theibaud's work is autobiographical. Thiebaud has often said he has drawn on childhood memories to provide inspiration for his work. In the case of his landscapes such as his Valley River series, he is on record as saying that these were produced in some sense to try and recreate the childhood summers he spent on his grandfather's farm helping to plough fields and tend crops. His Uncle Lowell was a road maker and even at the tender age of eight he received a toy bulldozer, scraper and cars so he could build his own highway network. 'I even helped him make some road...he was very precise...We'd go around and we would figure out how fast the car's going to go, what the angle has to be' (W. Thiebaud interviewed by R. Wollheim in Wayne Thiebaud Cityscapes, exh. cat., New York 1993, n.p.). Having the importance of precision installed into him from such an early age clearly had an effect on the young Thiebaud and it is one of the qualities that came to define his artistic career. This attention to detail is also a quality clearly demonstrated in Coming and Going in Thiebaud's delicate depiction of the street lights, his precise rendering of the road markings and even the distinctive detailing on the individual cars, so precise that you could almost make out specific makes and models.
In 1972 while living in Sacramento, Wayne Thiebaud bought a second home and studio in Potrero Hill, San Francisco. He immediately began working regularly on his increasingly important cityscapes, which he had begun the year before. 'I was fascinated...by the way that different streets came in and out and then just vanished. So I sat out on a street corner and began to paint them' (quoted by A.Gopnik, "An American Painter," Wayne Thiebaud: A Paintings Retrospective, exh. cat., San Francisco, 2000, p. 58).
This attraction to the everyday and then endowing it with a sumptuous touch is key to Thiebaud's work and is embodied beautifully in Coming and Going. He has transformed what should be a roaring, choking scar on the landscape into a toy-like, almost romantic image of his fellow San Franciscans going about their business. His characteristic use of perspective draws us into this scene and makes us stop, think and ponder the nature of our own surroundings, and perhaps encourages us to examine the beauty that surrounds us, wherever we might be.
His unique ability to see beauty in objects and landscapes that have traditionally been overlooked by artists, combined with an intense love of the act of painting, has resulted in a work that encourage us to examine our surroundings with renewed vigor and delight.
Thiebaud's landscapes and cityscapes are as central to his oeuvre as his still-life depictions of cakes and candy, given that they also allow him to indulge in his passion for the luscious application of paint in a way that adds both texture and depth to the work. In choosing the freeway as the subject of the present lot, Thiebaud is also continuing with his lifelong fascination with the images and objects that depict modern America. The freeway is as much a part of American culture as his other favorite subjects he lovingly depicted in Cakes, 1963, Pies, Pies, Pies, 1961, and Candy Counter, 1969.
His characteristric candy-colored palatte is evident in the warm, buttery yellow that bathes the freeway in the colors of a west coast sunset. This is then complimented with sparkling sapphire blues, emerald greens and violets used to depict the vehicles - the multi-colored cars and trucks packed onto the arcing roadway reminiscent of the candies packed into the gumball machines of his iconic Jawbreaker Machine, 1963.
In addition to its pop culture references, much of Theibaud's work is autobiographical. Thiebaud has often said he has drawn on childhood memories to provide inspiration for his work. In the case of his landscapes such as his Valley River series, he is on record as saying that these were produced in some sense to try and recreate the childhood summers he spent on his grandfather's farm helping to plough fields and tend crops. His Uncle Lowell was a road maker and even at the tender age of eight he received a toy bulldozer, scraper and cars so he could build his own highway network. 'I even helped him make some road...he was very precise...We'd go around and we would figure out how fast the car's going to go, what the angle has to be' (W. Thiebaud interviewed by R. Wollheim in Wayne Thiebaud Cityscapes, exh. cat., New York 1993, n.p.). Having the importance of precision installed into him from such an early age clearly had an effect on the young Thiebaud and it is one of the qualities that came to define his artistic career. This attention to detail is also a quality clearly demonstrated in Coming and Going in Thiebaud's delicate depiction of the street lights, his precise rendering of the road markings and even the distinctive detailing on the individual cars, so precise that you could almost make out specific makes and models.
In 1972 while living in Sacramento, Wayne Thiebaud bought a second home and studio in Potrero Hill, San Francisco. He immediately began working regularly on his increasingly important cityscapes, which he had begun the year before. 'I was fascinated...by the way that different streets came in and out and then just vanished. So I sat out on a street corner and began to paint them' (quoted by A.Gopnik, "An American Painter," Wayne Thiebaud: A Paintings Retrospective, exh. cat., San Francisco, 2000, p. 58).
This attraction to the everyday and then endowing it with a sumptuous touch is key to Thiebaud's work and is embodied beautifully in Coming and Going. He has transformed what should be a roaring, choking scar on the landscape into a toy-like, almost romantic image of his fellow San Franciscans going about their business. His characteristic use of perspective draws us into this scene and makes us stop, think and ponder the nature of our own surroundings, and perhaps encourages us to examine the beauty that surrounds us, wherever we might be.