Wayne Thiebaud (1920-2021) Untitled (Beach Scene), 1960 Watercolor on paper 20 x 26 inches (50.8 x 66.0 cm) (sheet) Signed and dated lower right: Thiebaud 1960 PROVENANCE: The artist; Elliott Fouts Gallery, Sacramento, California; Private collection, Roseville, California. Untitled (Beach Scene) is an early work that marks a turning point in the development of Wayne Thiebaud's mature visual language. Painted in 1960, it shows a lone figure seated on a sunlit beach, gazing toward the horizon. The shoreline is dotted with distant figures, rendered in quick, assured strokes that suggest space and motion with minimal detail. Completed shortly after Thiebaud's travels to Mexico, the work belongs to a brief but important series of beach scenes that signal a shift in his approach to color and form. A lighter palette and looser brushwork emerge—qualities that would soon shape his still lifes and landscapes. The soft blues and warm sand tones hint at the balanced, luminous color relationships that became central to his later style. The subject also draws on Thiebaud's youth in Long Beach, California, where he worked along the boardwalk selling hot dogs and ice cream. These formative experiences often resurfaced in his images of coastal life, food, and Americana. The setting here is not a specific place, but a blend of memory and imagination. Thiebaud cited 19th-century Spanish painter Joaquín Sorolla as a key influence during this period. Like Sorolla, he was interested in how light and color could convey mood and physical presence. Rather than aiming for realism, Thiebaud reduced the scene to its essentials, shaped as much by recollection as by observation. He described his imagery as a blend of observation, memory, and imagination—a sensibility fully present in this painting. Through expressive brushwork and a finely tuned palette, Untitled (Beach Scene) captures not just a view, but a sensation. HID12401132022 © 2024 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved www.HA.com/TexasAuctioneerLicenseNotice