The bather is seated in the void of the canvas.
The beach has disappeared.
There remains her toned swimmer's body, her modest post-war American swimsuit, her domed salon hairdo, her frontal gaze and her hand that unequivocally grasps the ice cream cone (
Girl with Ice Cream Cone
, 1963, loaned by the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington).
The feet are extended towards the spectator.
They are in the very foreground of the painting, like those of
The Lamentation over the Dead Christ
by Andrea Mantegna (1480).
The portrait has the readable simplicity of hyperrealist works, the taste for the banal object of pop art and the limitless space of abstract expressionism.
This is the whole paradox of Wayne Thiebaud (1920-2021), a figure of Bay Area Figurative Art, a current that united San Francisco artists in the middle of the 20th century.
The Fondation Beyeler in Basel offered him his first retrospective on German-speaking land and, so to speak, his first major exhibition in Europe.
American legend, Wayne Thiebaud…
This article is for subscribers only.
You have 84% left to discover.
Want to read more?
Unlock all items immediately.
Without engagement.
TEST FOR €0.99
Already subscribed?
Login