Wayne Thiebaud

American, 1920-2021

Yo Yos

© Estate of Wayne Thiebaud / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

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© Estate of Wayne Thiebaud / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

© Estate of Wayne Thiebaud / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

Yo Yos, 1963

Artwork Details

Materials

oil on canvas

Measurements

support: 24 x 24 inches (60.96 x 60.96 cm)

Collection Buffalo AKG Art Museum

Credit

Gift of Seymour H. Knox, Jr., 1963

Accession ID

K1963:24

Wayne Thiebaud is best known for his paintings of whimsical everyday objects and scenes, such as gumball machines, bakeshop windows, and childhood toys set against light backgrounds. During the 1960s, while many artists began to lean toward or emulate commercial means of production, Thiebaud opted to retain a painterly quality to his explorations of American nostalgia. Images such as Yo Yos utilize heavy tactile brushstrokes, a lush color palette, and repetition within the composition. About his use of multiple similar objects, Thiebaud has said, “If you look closely, they look all alike at first, until you examine them. Each one is curiously different in some minor way. That orchestrating principle you find all though the tradition of history painting, because its an obvious design concept. It’s like a drumbeat, you know, slight variations, repetitions, rhythms and so on.”

Label from For the Love of Things: Still Life, February 27–May 29, 2016