Wayne Thiebaud

1920 - 2021

Biography(b Mesa, AZ, 15 Nov 1920).
American painter, draughtsman and printmaker. While still studying at Long Beach Polytechnic High School he worked briefly at the Walt Disney Studios in Los Angeles (1936–7). In 1938 he studied commercial art at the Frank Wiggins Trade School in Los Angeles and then worked in Long Beach as a cartoonist. After World War II he attended San Jose State College (1949–50) and California State College at Sacramento (1950–53), majoring in art. While working as an art instructor at Sacramento Junior College from 1951 to 1960 he experimented with various styles of painting, but after meeting Abstract Expressionist painters in New York in 1956–7 he produced such works as The Sea Rolls In (1958; Sacramento, CA, Crocker A. Mus.) under their influence.

In 1960 Thiebaud began teaching in the Art Department of the University of California at Davis. He began in that year to paint still-lifes of items of food such as pies and cakes, for example Cut Meringues (1961; New York, MOMA), and of banal contemporary objects. Although the imagery of these works contributed to the iconography of Pop art, they were painted with succulent brushstrokes far removed from the depersonalized handling favoured by most Pop painters. From 1963 Thiebaud also painted figures in a similar style, often depicting them singly against a white background, as in Bikini (1964; Kansas City, MO, Nelson–Atkins Mus. A.). After 1966 he turned increasingly to landscapes, first favouring rural landscapes and then depopulated urban landscapes, as in Corner Apartments (Down 18th Street) (1980; Washington, DC, Hirshhorn). ["Thiebaud, Wayne." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press, accessed September 11, 2014, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T084555.]

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