- 32
Wayne Thiebaud
Description
- Wayne Thiebaud
- Nude, Back View
- oil on canvas
- 72 x 48 in. 182.9 x 121.9 cm.
- Painted in 1969.
Provenance
Robert Feldman, New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above
Exhibited
Dublin, Royal Dublin Society, R.O.S.C. '71, October - December 1971
New York, American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, Exhibition of Work by Newly Elected Members and Recipients of Awards, May - June 1986, cat. no. 28
New York, Allan Stone Gallery, Wayne Thiebaud at Allan Stone Gallery: Celebrating 33 Years Together, May - June 1994, n.p., illustrated in color
New York, Allan Stone Gallery, Wayne Thiebaud: The Figure, April - May 2008, p. 27, illustrated in color
Condition
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.
Catalogue Note
"It occurs to me that most people in figure paintings have always done something. The figures have been standing posing, fighting, loving, and what I'm interested in, really, is the figure that is about to do something, or has done something, or is doing nothing, and with that sort of centering device, try to figure out what can be revealed, not only to people, but to myself." - Wayne Thiebaud, 1974
(Exh. Cat., New York, Allan Stone Gallery, Wayne Thiebaud: The Figure, 2008, p. 8)
Nude, Back View, 1969 is a breathtaking example of Thiebaud's inquiry into the challenge of rendering the human form. After the pivotal success of his paintings of cakes and pies exhibited at Allan Stone Gallery in 1962-63, Thiebaud began a fresh and concentrated investigation of the human figure to purposely expand the subject matter of his oeuvre. There are very few paintings of life-sized nudes completed by Thiebaud, possibly due to his belief that the figure is the most difficult and demanding subject matter an artist can undertake. In Thiebaud's own words, "I think an artist's capacity to handle the figure is a great test of his abilities." (Exh. Cat., San Francisco, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Wayne Thiebaud: A Painting Retrospective, 2000, p. 22). Allan Stone shared the painter's respect for the genre and so admired Thiebaud's conquest of the figure that he collected several of the most important works including Nude, Back View. It was also fitting🔯 that the Allan Stone Gallery held a tribute exhibition of the series in 2008 that included the presenꦍt work.
Choosing to paint a female nude is not without its perils. An artist must be up to the task of confronting the long lineage of figure painting that has come before. Thiebaud is aware of this and meets the challenge in his usually unpretentious way, "I am very influenced by the tradition of painting and not at all self-conscious about identifying my sources." (Ibid., p. 11). Even still, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Edgar Degas or Balthus are formidable artists to take on as predecessors. The enigmatic stillness and ambiguous content of Balthus' nudes permeate their interior settings, marking these paintings as interesting precedents for the equally opaque presence of Thiebaud's monumental nude. Further, Nude, Back View incorporates both "the delicate nuances of Ingre's line" and the "energized strokes that recall Degas's method of creating sketchy, brisk masses of light and shadow that define form." (Exh. Cat., New York, Allan Stone Gallery, Wayne Thiebaud: The Figure, 2008, p. 7). Interestingly, Degas's foray into nude female bathers came after he was labeled as the 'painter of dancers' (Richard Kendall, Degas: Beyond Impressionism, National Gallery Publications, London, 1996, p. 230); as history often repeats itself, Thiebaud shifted focus to the figure in 1963, the year after he became famous for being the 'painter of pies' (Ibid., p. 5).
Differing from the still life paintings, Thiebaud's figures are almost always painted from models, not memory. Thiebaud explains, "I started out painting the figure from memory, with disastrous results. I just didn't know enough about the figure and still don't. It's very difficult for me. So I have people pose, and I just keep trying." (Exh. Cat., San Francisco, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Wayne Thiebaud: A Painting Retrospective, 2000, p. 23). Thus, the human form in its infinite permutations continues💙 to challe♕nge the artist, providing a fruitful ground for painterly exploration.
In its straightforward presentation as a figure on a plane, Nude, Back View is treated like one of Thiebaud's still life compositions, exhibiting the same stillness and isolation. The figure is presented simply, in front of a creamy white backdrop devoid of detail. The atmosphere is one of clinical inquiry; and yet, Nude, Back View is not dissimilar from a single-item still life such as Thiebaud's Black Ice Cream, (circa 1967). Donald Kuspit has described Thiebaud's paintings as "at once full of 'innocent' perception and sophisticated consciousness," both of which are at work in the seemingly simple presentation of Nude, Back View (Exh. Cat., London, Faggionato Fine Art, Wayne Thiebaud Paintings, 2005, p. 9).
Thiebaud deliberately avoids placing the figure in a context that would lead to an implied narrative (Exh. Cat., New York, Allan Stone Gallery, Wayne Thiebaud: The Figure, 2008, p. 7). By refraining from the narrative impulse, Thiebaud draws out the moments that exist either before or after an action takes place, preventing any particular emotion or mood to attach itself to the subject. Appropriately, Nude, Back View evinces a multiplicity of emotional possibilities including pensive, anxious, resolute, or resigned. Thus, Thiebaud's subjects recall the figures that appear in the works of Edward Hopper. Consider a Hopper nude staring blankly off into the distance or the woman in his New York Interior, 1921. The similarities between the two compositions and the painterly application of both warm and cool tones that define the women's backs are striking, and so is the feeling of solemnity and introspection. Remarkably, Thiebaud has stripped his composition bare, and through a masterful handling, maintained ✱all of the impact by using only the essential elements.
Important to Thiebaud's conception of Nude, Back View are both size and light. The life-sized proportions of the painting suggest a one-to-one scale relationship with the sitter, implying a direct int♑erpretation of the figure with little pictorial interference. And yet, the painting feels monumental in scale. Thiebaud places his human subjects under a bright light while he paints, and the resulting intensification of every shadow and fleshy detail is incorporated into the work and accounts for both the ethereal aura of the painting's glowing surface and the insistentඣ corporality of the flesh.
Nude, Back View is a masterful treatment of the human figure at a moment when the validity of painting itself was under attack or at least revision from various other artistic allegiances. But Thiebaud was undaunted by the medium's detractors and strengthened by his figurative contemporaries and historical luminaries. The challenges presented by the figure render Nude, Back View a work central to💎 Thiebaud's career as it proclaims the significant and rewarding progression beyond his still l💦ife genre.