Wayne Thiebaud (1920–2021)
1963
Oil on canvas
This major painting was included as part of an influential pair of exhibitions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1963. They presented leading East and West Coast artists who focused on objects of modern American life, including Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns and Ed Ruscha. Wayne Thiebaud was described as ‘the laureate of lunch counters and diners’ and singled out as recasting the traditions of still-life painting. Delicatessen Counter recalls an earlier painting of modern consumer society that Thiebaud much admired, Édouard Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882; on display in the adjacent permanent collection gallery), albeit with the human figure removed. Both paintings position the viewer as customers and evoke a strange mix of desire, abundance, isolation and absence.