Wayne Thiebaud (1920–2021)
1963
Oil on canvas
Wayne Thiebaud favoured painting foods that had been heavily processed and shaped. Larger in scale than his earlier pie paintings, this work conveys an intensified sense of the assembly line and mass production. However, he saw paintings such as Pie Counter as an invitation to look
more intently and to notice the differences in the seemingly uniform. They were, for him, ‘a play on the closeness of similarities and dissimilarities. At first glance, the pies look mechanical and have a sameness. At least, most people will think they do until they study them closely.’