Monday, December 27, 2021

Painting Is a Team Sport: Wayne Thiebaud

by Gregg Chadwick


"At the heart of Wayne Thiebaud's greatness was his love of art's history and his ability to translate art's standards into his own language for our present.." - Tyler Green

"My favorite Wayne Thiebaud painting is Cup of Coffee. Look at this coloring, what a miracle. What he called being able to 'see the edges of the edges'” - Max Lakin

I was fortunate to meet Wayne Thiebaud a few times when I lived in San Francisco. He was always engaging and always present. The first time I met Thiebaud he was walking out of  the Washington Square Bar and Grill in North Beach on a Fall afternoon in 1991. The Washbag, as the restaurant was affectionately known thanks to San Francisco columnist Herb Caen, was the ultimate place to schmooze with Bay Area politicians and power brokers in the 1980s and 1990s. 
Thiebaud was by himself and didn't seem to be in a hurry after his lunch, so I ventured up to Wayne Thiebaud and thanked him for his artwork. Wayne looked at me and smiled then said, "You must be an artist, a painter, to have said that. You know, that means the world to me, because when a fellow artist recognizes my work, it means that I have done something worthwhile. Thank you for recognizing me." Then he strode off leaving me with a giant smile on my face and a new found badge of courage as an artist. 



Artist and Professor Emeritus Wayne Thiebaud at the under-construction Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art in 2016. He died Dec. 25 at the age of 101. 
(Gregory Urquiaga/UC Davis)


I love how Thiebaud painted San Francisco and the Sacramento Delta. My brother went to college at UC Davis and I would sometimes hang out there, trying to soak up the spirit of Thiebaud and Robert Arneson who taught there. “Wayne Thiebaud believed teaching and learning were life's most important pursuits. He loved to read, discuss, and look together with his students,” said Rachel Teagle, founding director of the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at UC Davis. “‘Painting is a team sport,’” Thiebaud liked to say. “And for his many, many lifelong students, learning with Wayne was a great honor.” 



Wayne Thiebaud
Sunset Streets
48" x 35 3/4" oil on canvas 1985
Collection SFMOMA
Purchase with the aid of funds from public subscription, William L. Gerstle Fund, Fund of the '80s, Clinton Walker Fund, and Thomas W. Weisel
© Wayne Thiebaud / Licensed by VAGA, New York


Wayne Thiebaud was a great teacher in the classroom and within his artworks themselves. His paintings compel us to recognize the enticing color and subject matter and simultaneously comprehend how they were created. See the form? Good. Now look at the edges. And then the edges of the edges. Thiebaud's painted forms are ringed with glowing auras of color that define space and atmosphere while at the same time keeping us aware of the flat surface they are painted on. Sebastian Smee in the Washington Post writes about this: 
"Thiebaud rims the objects he paints — often pies, cupcakes, ice cream cones or candy machines — with multiple lines of vivid, contrasting color. He does the same with their shadows.

These lines mediate between the objects themselves and their surroundings until the whole ensemble starts to quiver, like a strummed chord."
As a young artist, Thiebaud learned much from Sunday Morning Comics and animation.  Thiebaud expressed that all great artists used the principles of cartooning or caricature as a means of creating individuality and a distinct style. French artist Pierre Bonnard's vibrant work could be described as a caricature of color. And Italian artist Giorgio Morandi's quiet still lifes are also tension filled images. Thiebaud describes the objects in Morandi's painting as if they gripped by a vise. (See video below) In notes for the exhibition Wayne Thiebaud at Museo Morandi - the Morandi Museum in Bologna, Italy finds great affinity between Thiebaud and Morandi:
"an interest for everyday objects, simplified so as to become purely formal elements, the tendency to align them in strictly ordered progressions, the apparent repetition of representations, the study of variants, the aesthetic isolation of objects or groups thereof, the search of strong visual impact through a deep attention to light, form and brushstroke quality. The juxtaposition of their work reveals a shared tendency to subjectively interpret and reconstruct visual reality in conformity to their inner vision." 


Wayne Thiebaud
Girl With Pink Hat 
36" x 29 1/2" oil on canvas 1973
Collection SFMOMA
Gift of Jeannette Powell
© Wayne Thiebaud / Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York
Photo by Gregg Chadwick 

California museums, especially in the Bay Area, are rich with Thiebaud's artworks and I have spent days studying his paintings. I find that when an artist's work speaks to me it makes me want to rush back to my studio and paint. When I look at Thiebaud's paintings, I am filled with a kind of artistic epiphany that inspires me and urges me forward. Sebastian Smee describes this well:
 "The color intensification is not affectless and artificial...Your perceptions don’t feel traduced. They’re heightened, as happens when you’re walking through the streets of San Francisco on a summer evening and golden, slanted light ignites everything it hits, casting dramatic, diagonal shadows, and you can’t believe how preposterously gorgeous it all is."


Gregg Chadwick
Gravity's Empire
72"x36" oil on linen 2014
Carlo Siliotto Collection, Los Angeles and Rome, Italy


My painting Gravity's Empire is a San Francisco cityscape that is an homage to Wayne Thiebaud. Indeed, when I am walking the evening streets of San Francisco and a golden, slanted light ignites everything it hits, I often think of Thiebaud. And I can’t believe how preposterously gorgeous life is.



Robert Arneson
California Artist
68 1/4 in. x 27 1/2 in. x 20 1/4 in. stoneware with glazes 1983
Collection SFMOMA
Gift of the Modern Art Council
© Estate of Robert Arneson / Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York
Photo by Gregg Chadwick 




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