Wayne Thiebaud

Allan Stone Gallery, New York
Private Collection (acquired from the above in 1963)
Allan Stone Gallery, New York
Private Collection (acquired from the above in 1970)
Private Collection (by descent from the above)
Thence by descent to the present owner

New York, Allan Stone Gallery, Wayne Thiebaud Recent Paintings, April - May 1962
Bayonne, Jewish Community Center, 15th Annual Art Exhibition, March 1968

This work is in excellent condition overall. The canvas is stretched over wood panel. Only visible under very close inspection and raking light, there are a few very small areas of pigment separation and a couple areas of minor stable hairline craquelure. Also under very close inspection, there is evidence of two very minor unobtrusive pinpoint losses to the pigment along the lower left and the upper left at the turning edges. Under Ultraviolet inspection, there are a few pinpoint areas that fluoresce, however they do not appear to be evidence of restoration.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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Simultaneously expressive and intimate, Wayne Thiebaud’s Cheeze Chunks from 1962 is an important early painting that was first exhibited in the artist’s 1962 inaugural solo exhibition at Allan Stone Gallery in New York. The exhibition propelled Thiebaud into the foreground of New York’s art scene and subsequently canonized him as one of the leading American artists of the 20^th century. Depicting a carefully arranged tray of cheese rendered in sumptuous eddies of impasto, Cheeze Chunks, is an intimate portrayal of the artist’s most celebrated subject: food.

Thiebaud’s choice to depict unmistakably American consumer products such as these playful cubes of cheese, echoes the same sentiment of democratic abundance that Andy Warhol observed in the ubiquity of the Coca Cola bottle: “All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bums knows it, and you know it” (Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again, Boston, 1975, p. 101). Thiebaud has often been cited as an important influence on the Pop Art movement and a precursor to many significant works by Warhol, who began his Soup Can series the very same year the present work was executed.

Rather than satirize American consumer culture, Thiebaud evokes an honest appreciation and nostalgic recollection of shared experiences and memories of modern American life. He states: "Most of the objects are fragments of actual experience. For instance, I would really think of the bakery counter, of the way the counter was lit, where the pies were placed, but I wanted just a piece of the experience. From when I worked in restaurants, I can remember seeing rows of pies, or a tin of pie with one piece out of it and one pie sitting beside it. Those little vedute in fragmented circumstances were always poetic to me."  

With seemingly effortless wit, works such as Cheeze Chunks ask the viewer to embrace familiarity whilst inviting a focus on objectivity – the particular textures, colors and shapes depicted – in order to get to the very architecture of the image. And yet the nature of Thiebaud’s medium allows him to go a step further. It is with this wry trick of the brush that Thiebaud at once assumes the role of objectivist and expressionist; his forms are so reduced and clinical that they seem almost illusory, yet his vibrant and impassioned handling of paint makes them inviting, palpable, and almost real enough to touch. Thiebaud’s painterly investigations of American life through its objects, people, streets and landscapes are always realized in a beguiling yet highly controlled manner in which larger truths are conveyed with small gestures. Indeed, in the present Cheeze Chunks we see that Thiebaud’s smallest works are often among the most tantalizing.