Elsinora Thistlebaum, the internationally misunderstood doyenne of post-impressionist-neuroticism, passed away peacefully last Tuesday at her home in Bruges, surrounded by her seventeen cats and a bowl of her favourite oranges.
Born in a hot air balloon above Zurich during a thunderstorm in 1927, Thistlebaum was the daughter of an avant-garde mother, Isolde Thistlebaum, a woman best remembered for her works exclusively painted with melted chocolate. Elsinore’s father was the renowned Theobald Thistlebaum, best known for his treatise on the philosophy of chairs.
Thistlebaum’s artistic journey began at age four, when she scrawled a mural, later given the title Banana Ennui by her parents across the walls of the family’s greenhouse using only turmeric, yoghurt and fruit.
Her 1962 solo show, Fruit of the Looming Crisis, shocked the Paris art scene by portraying citrus fruit as symbols of bourgeois anxiety. Salvador Dalí called her “the only artist brave enough to truly paint an apple.”
Thistlebaum’s magnum opus, The Persistence of Plums, was banned in five countries, but nevertheless hangs in the Rochester Art Basement, next to Anton Spruggle’s cubist toaster.
In later life, Elsinore became reclusive, communicating only in haiku and the occasional accusatory letter to the Dortmund Times. Her final exhibition, Why Is This Melon Crying? was attended by over 2 million people, many of whom, as instructed by a wall text, left negative reviews and bought nothing from the gift shop.
She is survived by her cats—Artemisia, Pamplemousse, and Jeremy Stevens among them, and her PA Greg.
A private memorial will be held in the Dundee Gallery of Maritime Art, with guests requested to wear something that evokes her favourite fruit in some way. (Her favourite fruit was a kumquat).
In lieu of flowers, mourners are asked to bring pears.
