Wayne Thiebaud (b. 1920)

"But of course I do think a lot about the subject matter, which exercises some sort of mysterious pull. It's just very, very familiar. I spent time in food preparation, I sold papers on the streets, and I went into Kresses or Woolworth's or Newberrys, to see the eccentric display of peppermint candy. They're mostly painted from memory-from memories of bakeries and restaurants-any kind of window display. It's the exclusionary aspect that gets me-there's a lot of yearning, there." Wayne Thiebaud quoted in S. Nash and A. Gopnik, Wayne Thiebaud: A Paintings Retrospective, San Francisco, 2000, exh. cat., p. 55.