Wayne Thiebaud (1920–2021)
1962
Oil on canvas
Wayne Thiebaud’s interest in objects of everyday consumerism meant that he was often categorised as a Pop artist and was included in several seminal Pop Art exhibitions throughout the 1960s. However, his lushly painted works are at odds with the cool detachment and slick surfaces more typical of that movement. This painting shows Thiebaud working at the extreme of his distinctive approach, with its whipped, buttery brushstrokes conjuring the substance of the creamy cakes themselves. As he put it, ‘white, gooey, shiny, sticky oil paint spread out on the top of a painted cake becomes frosting. It is playing with reality.’