When Wayne Thiebaud died in 2021 at the age of 101, he’d been painting for 80 years and teaching for 54. When he wasn’t teaching, he was in the studio at 6:30 a.m. painting, took a break to play tennis and lunch with his longtime wife, then back in the studio for the rest of the day. He said, “I make a lot of bad paintings.” But looking at the range and mastery of work he produced in those 80 years, he ranks as one of the greats.
He was known for his beach confections and scenes. On closer study, his intense study of the craft is evident in the sumptuous impasto paint that somehow manages to look like the substance of the image—rich creamy ice cream, mustard on a hot dog, icing on cake. He also produced anatomically exact figure paintings and drawings. He said, “I think an artist’s capacity to handle the figure is a great test of his abilities.” Then there are the dramatic landscapes with strong, clear light, and the cityscapes in the San Francisco series that are radiantly eschewed architectural feats with his critical eye for size and scale, all a testament to a lifetime practice of drawing and devotion to craft.
Double Scoop (2013-15) is like a Morandi painting, still and poetic. Indeed, Morandi was a painter that Thiebaud said he owed a debt to, along with Sargeant, Sorolla, Manet, Chardin and others. In the painting, Eight Surf Dog (2008), all is movement and playful energy. The still life, Untitled (Hot Dog) (2019), with the energetic hot dog ready to leap out of the plump bun into your mouth, against a flat background thick with white paint, is filled with wit. These are joyful, animated paintings for all their quiet stillness. The more you look, the more the brilliance of these painterly paintings shines.
There is also the drama of his landscapes. Towering peaks, banks of voluminous clouds, sheer precipices, dark crevices, sweeping blue shadows. Or the symmetrical fields and straight rows of crops that all give a sense of perfection, like his still lifes of food that never spoil. Thiebaud’s paintings ease the mind and offer respite from chaos. His clarity runs through all his paintings, and throughout his life and teaching. Perhaps he’s not as lauded as other painters of his time—de Kooning and Pollock—because he was not a bad boy, the artist with a storied life of women and alcohol. Married for 56 years to Betty Jean Carr and father to three children, he was a steady husband, father, teacher and artist.
Thiebaud started drawing cartoons and watching sign painters at 14. In high school, he was an apprentice in animation at Walt Disney Studios, and after graduation, he sold newspapers, worked at a creamery washing dishes and as a theater usher. In the army, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he drew replicas of the Japanese islands for pilots to simulate bombing Japan. Then it was off to New York to sell his cartoons; he stayed one year, then returned to California and worked for the Rexall Drug Company in the art department.
He wanted to be a teacher, so he earned his teaching certificate and master’s degree at Sacramento State College and started teaching in 1951 at Sacramento City College. He taught and painted for ten years, then went back to New York and hung out at the Cedar Club on Friday nights with the artists and critics. He said he learned from de Kooning that, “You should find something that you really feel genuine in terms of your experience, so that you’re focused in some way against this… All the influences of the art world can trip you up…it’s very important to understand art history but not so important to be interested in what’s happening today. That made a very big impression on me…I believe that for my students. I’m a very old-fashioned teacher. I’m more interested in painting than in art.” He had his first show in 1961 in New York, taught art history and practice at UC Davis for 42 years, including 12 more years after retiring.
The utter lack of guile in Thiebaud’s work is refreshing, especially today in a time of confusing rhetoric and sharp criticism. The longer you stare at one of his paintings the more it pulsates with color and astounds with its unique perspective. Thiebaud painted from memory which may be one of the reasons why his paintings are so unique. Take Beach Gathering (2000-15), a remarkable work in perspective. Each person is isolated in their own activity, except for a possible couple standing close. There are two more solitary individuals in the distance at the
“I come from a long tradition of contrast. Tiny imperfections keeping the painting from being too sweet,” Thiebaud said. Contrast that with Lucien Freud: “Every painting needs a drop of poison.” Or Diebenkorn: “Painting has to have an anomaly in it.” Or De Kooning: “A painting needs contradiction.” Darkness is in the light so don’t be deceived by Thiebaud’s sunny beach scenes and hamburger stands. They are playful, witty and bright, just like in 1950s America when a lot lay hidden behind the scenes.
Mary Okin wrote her PhD on Thiebaud, interviewing him nine times during his last years, and is now writing a book about the artist. “I don’t think there’s been enough serious work done about Thiebaud,” she told Observer. “He was a very special person. So kind. He was extremely interested in art history and never took his art and talent for granted. His students loved him. He was so well-loved by so many people. His teaching produced many artists and teachers.”
She continued to talk about what a good speaker he was and sat on many panels, how he didn’t chase the art market, his wife was his muse, his work communicates easily across generations and he was always striving for excellence. “He was always challenging himself. His work has a timeless quality. He didn’t like labels, didn’t like the word artist. He said, ‘I am a painter and teacher.’ He was humble and remarkably talented.”
Acquavella Galleries represented Thiebaud during the final decades of his life and staged multiple solo exhibitions during that time. The most recent, “Summer Days” in New York, which closed mid-June, was the first since the artist’s passing. “I think art is probably our saving grace,” he once said. His paintings seem hardly possible in today’s fraught world. But we have them and we need them to remind us of quiet, beauty, stillness and most certainly play. Come rest in Thiebaud paintings. They will always welcome you with open arms. Thiebaud once said, “I’m in the oil business.” And there you have it.
