Wayne Thiebaud (b. 1920)

Beginning in the 1970s, the quintessentially American painter Wayne Thiebaud introduced a number of new subjects into his still life paintings after a decade of painting what Steven Nash, curator of the artist’s celebrated retrospective at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in 2000, describes as “cafeteria-type foods… the cakes, pies, ice creams, hamburgers, hot dogs, canapés, club sandwiches, and other staples of the American diet—all of which have a stereotypical this-can-be-found-anywhere-in-the-country-but-only-in-this-country quality.” He continues that, during this period of innovation, “Piles of books, brightly colored ties, eyeglasses and paint cans” joined the roster of objects to be considered through the artist’s unique lens. While “light in mood,” as Nash notes, “these works could, however, suddenly turn dark” (S. Nash, “Unbalancing Acts: Wayne Thiebaud Reconsidered,” Wayne Thiebaud: A Paintings Retrospective, San Francisco, 2000, p. 15, 21). While Nash is identifying the psychological qualities that begin to pepper Thiebaud’s later works, they are also quite literally darker in palette too as can be seen in this superlative example from the period in which the interplay of color across light and shadow is key to the painting’s significance.

In this particular example, the artist has given an almost architectural presence to the suite of eleven volumes. They stand like buildings in a row of slim and wide widths and tall and short statures. The high intensity light with which Thiebaud has chosen to backlight the composition casts a dramatic shadow in front of the books, rendering their titles unreadable. This choice was deliberate, as Thiebaud wanted to focus on the formal aspects of the books rather than their content. Thus, instead of row of titles that would offer access into the personality of their owner, Thiebaud presents the range of colors on the book spines for the viewer’s consideration. Whereas in other similar works he breaks down the white light that surrounds the object of his study into a halo of its various component colors, here the brightly colored spines stand as the ultimate rendition of the artist’s signature rainbow spectrum.