E
xecuted in 2020, a year before the artist’s passing, Three Candy Apples sees Wayne Thiebaud revisiting one of his most iconic and beloved subjects with joyful finesse. The present work illustrates three glistening, jewel-like confections resting primly against a pale, lushly articulated surface, their sticks lifted delicately as if ripe for plucking straight off the canvas. This tantalizing tactility is further emphasized by Thiebaud’s signature deployment of impasto, which serves to echo the candy apples’ pulsating gleam through the paint’s materiality. With Three Candy Apples, Thiebaud looks back to the electrically nostalgic renderings that launched his seven-decade long career with all the contemplation and precision of the great American master that he is.
The bright optimism of Three Candy Apples is anchored by Thiebaud’s concise grasp on architectonic composition and prismatic color. While often linked to Pop Artists due to their shared handling of mass-produced objects, Thiebaud’s resplendent iterations of classically American consumer goods are fond explorations in repetition and variation rather than a detached critique on standardization. In doing so, he imbues the commonplace with the heroic. Thiebaud himself commented on his affection for the uniformity of American foodstuffs, saying “It interests me because of the consciousness of simultaneity – of how much alike we are, how close we are to one another and how rare it is to come across distinctions of any sort… it’s familiar and also funny; it tells us how gregarious and how close we really are. That’s very comforting” (Wayne Thiebaud quoted in “Wayne Thiebaud: An Interview,” J. Coplans, (ed.), Wayne Thiebaud, exh. cat., Pasadena Art Museum, 1968, p. 26).
Indeed, the contrast between his endearingly decadent forms and his tautly constructed composition evokes a gem-like fragment of childhood memory, vivid and frozen yet shimmering at the edges. Thiebaud elicits this dreamlike quality through kaleidoscopic hues, underscoring a dramatic approach to lighting that evokes Hopper in its atmospheric nostalgia. With Three Candy Apples, Thiebaud presents a color palette that can only be the result of decades of refinement in its vivacity and elegance. Edges and shadows are animated with strokes of cornflower blue and marigold yellow; the crimson treats appear to quiver with allure. Three Candy Apples is also an incredibly significant demonstration of Thiebaud’s masterful investigation into the color white, making it a stand-out amongst his already prodigious oeuvre. Following in the tradition of Impressionists like Monet, Sisley, and Pissarro, Thiebaud understood that white was never a pure hue, but rather composed of multitudes of subtle, reflected colors. In Three Candy Apples, the three whites – or rather, the ivory surface, the slate background, and the crystalline candy sticks – create a delicate interplay that injects the entire painting with a deftly executed sense of poetry.
The utter embodiment of Thiebaud's mastery over the surface in Three Candy Apples, holds a distinct important historical significance within Thiebaud's output. The surface of the canvas in the present work was indeed originally used by Thiebaud in the late 1960s, and was mounted to a larger board and painted from the canvas to the board to create continuity in the composition. Years later, Thiebaud rediscovered the cut canvas in his studio, re-purposed it by sanding the surface, and creating an ingeniously mature exploration of his celebrated themes, while paying homage to his artistic origins.
Three Candy Apples is Wayne Thiebaud at his best – a jubilant return to one of his most iconic confections with all the expert grace of a virtuoso now synonymous with idyllic Americana. Almost hypnotic in their lushness, Thiebaud’s crimson orbs rest in the tremor between decadence and discipline. At an intimate scale, Thiebaud alights on the cultural collects ive memory characteristic of Pop Art with the sincere sent.mes ntality of the Old Masters. Three Candy Apples captures and refines Thiebaud’s trademark sumptuous celebration of the American psyche, a triumphant culmination of a decades adored practice that remains deeply and personally effervescent.
