Wayne Thiebaud (1920-2021) Three Burgers, 2000 Pastel on paper 11-1/4 x 16 inches (28.6 x 40.6 cm) (sheet) Signed and dated lower right: WThiebaud 2000 Property from the Estate of Matthew Healy PROVENANCE: Campbell-Thiebaud Gallery, San Francisco, California. Wayne Thiebaud (1920–2021) was a pivotal American artist whose work bridged rigorous formalism and the visual vernacular of everyday life. Born in Mesa, Arizona, and raised in Southern California, he began his career in commercial art. In 1936, he briefly worked at Walt Disney Studios, an early experience that sharpened his sense of line, clarity, and stylized form. After serving in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II, Thiebaud pursued a formal art education and went on to teach at Sacramento City College and then the University of California, Davis, where he remained a key figure for decades. Thiebaud returned often to ordinary subjects—cakes, deli counters, streets, and sandwiches—not to celebrate consumer culture, but to explore light, structure, and color. One of his most important tools for this exploration was pastel. Far from being a peripheral material, pastel was central to his mature practice. It allowed him to work directly and precisely, combining the immediacy of drawing with the chromatic richness of painting. The surface qualities pastel afforded—its density, softness, and luminosity—made it ideal for Thiebaud’s investigations into volume and perception. His 2000 drawing Three Burgers exemplifies this approach. Measuring 11¼ x 16 inches, it features three cheeseburgers stacked in a triangle, resting on a pale plane against a softly hatched blue-gray background. The composition is simple, but the rendering is intricate. Each burger is constructed with dense, deliberate strokes: the buns curve with layers of ochre and sienna; the fillings—lettuce, tomato, cheese, and meat—are rendered in vibrant, contrasting bands. Thiebaud’s mastery of pastel is especially evident in the way he uses color to suggest form. Lettuce appears not just green, but also blue and mint; tomatoes pulse with reds and orange edged in violet. These color relationships create a sense of depth and materiality. Rather than smoothing the pastel into blended gradients, Thiebaud allows individual marks to remain visible, emphasizing the physicality of the medium. The cast shadows are vivid and structural, rendered in deep purples and cool blues. They fall sharply to the lower right, echoing the shape of the burgers and stabilizing the composition. For Thiebaud, shadows weren’t secondary—they were compositional tools that enhanced spatial clarity and chromatic balance. The background consists of vertical lines in soft gray-blue, evoking the texture of wallpaper or wood paneling. It remains understated but grounds the image in a contained space. The triangular arrangement of the burgers is echoed by the long shadows, creating a balance of shape and countershape that anchors the drawing. Three Burgers is not only playful nostalgia—it is a meditation on structure, color, and light. Made in 2000, it reflects Thiebaud’s fully developed vision and his profound engagement with pastel as a complete medium. Through discipline and invention, he turns a humble subject into a luminous, spatially complex image—quiet, exacting, and deeply satisfying. HID12401132022 © 2024 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved www.HA.com/TexasAuctioneerLicenseNotice