RIP Ronnie Spector

#RIPRonnieSpector

Spector & The E Street Band

Ronnie Spector photographed in the United Kingdom on April 28, 1971.

Jack Kay/Daily Express/GI

2022

 

by Gregg Chadwick

Happy Year of the Tiger! Good News and New Art  from Gregg Chadwick

Gregg Chadwick Steps of Time 30" x 24" oil on linen 2020 Featured in Seeds of Optimism  "Manifest a happy and bright new year with a joyous artwork  by one of our top artists from around the globe."                    Bethany Fincher - Assistant Curator at Saatchi Art    As 2022 begins, I am honored that Saatchi Art included an artwork  of mine in their Seeds of Optimism collection. In my new  interview with Art Squat Magazine, I discuss my Saffron Road series: "Twenty years ago in Thailand, I woke up at dawn and spent  the morning quietly and carefully observing the saffron robed monks  on their morning pilgrimages. On my return to the U.S. later that week,  I began to paint Buddhist monks, privately at first - as a form of meditation.  Only later did I grasp the dharmic sense of responsibility inherent in this new  body of work. I needed to paint these paintings. And I found that  the audience I had developed over the years felt the need to see them also . They have given me their trust that I will create paintings that  speak of our times but also provide clues to a future path into the unknown." Collection at https://www.saatchiart.com/.../Seeds.../1376557/638724/view

Gregg Chadwick Frida Cano (E Line) 37" x 24" oil on linen 2021 On exhibit in 𝙒𝙚 𝘼𝙧𝙚… 𝙋𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙩𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙈𝙚𝙩𝙧𝙤 𝙍𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙗𝙮 𝙇𝙤𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙨. Union Station, Los Angeles, California   For the Metro project "We Are…Portraits of Metro Riders by Local Artists", I painted a portrait of artist, writer, and curator Frida Cano.  Like a steel river, Metro’s E Line connects arts institutions across Los Angeles County. Running from 7th Street in Downtown L.A. to Santa Monica, the E train begins just down Bunker Hill from LA MOCA and the Broad Museum and passes by numerous art cultural centers from the California African-American Museum, to the art gallery districts in West Adams and Culver City, to the Sawtelle Corridor, to Bergamot Station, to the 18th Street Arts Center, ending a few miles from the Ocean Park neighborhood in Santa Monica that inspired artists from Richard Diebenkorn to John Baldessari.  Frida Cano lives in Echo Park and often travels on the E Line to her art curatorial position in Santa Monica. Frida lives and breathes the concerns of our times. She writes,” As an emerging Mexican artist and curator, focused on the reevaluation of history and culture through Latin American perspectives, it has been my concern to truly communicate the social issues of our times.” Frida rides the train and sees the world reflected in the glass of the E Line as she travels across L.A. Frida believes that art curators, in tandem with artists and critics, can bring circulating and hidden ideas to light. This zeitgeist informed my portrait of Frida Cano, pictured thinking as she waits for the E train.    Frida Cano Meets Frida Cano at  𝙒𝙚 𝘼𝙧𝙚… 𝙋𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙩𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙈𝙚𝙩𝙧𝙤 𝙍𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙗𝙮 𝙇𝙤𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙨. Union Station, Los Angeles, California We Are...Portraits of Metro Riders by Local Artists is on view in the Union Station Passageway Art Gallery and in an expanded online gallery that celebrates diversity and the community of transit riders. We Are... will launch more upcoming programs in 2022 across multiple formats and sites including buses, trains and stations in Los Angeles County. The program will even include a special Metro Art Bus!  This multi-site exhibition and series of events is presented by Metro Art in collaboration with Metro’s Office of Civil Rights, Racial Equity & Inclusion and Communications departments.

Gregg Chadwick Ocean, Otters, Oil 40" x 40 oil on linen 2021 Featured in Plants and Poetry Journal: Wildlife of the Underworld   On walks along California's Central Coast, I often stop and peer into the swirling mix of seaweed and surf looking for the telltale bob of a sea otter as it breaks to the surface. The tap, tap, tap of otters cracking shells across rocks carried on their chests as they float on their backs in the kelp filled water also gives away their location. Sea otters are voracious eaters, clearing coastal seabeds of purple sea urchins that would otherwise decimate the growing kelp forests.   By keeping the purple urchin population down, sea otters remove kelp's major nemesis. Sea urchins feed on the holdfasts that keep kelp anchored to the bottom of the ocean. Sea otters feed on the purple sea urchins that devour kelp forests. When the sea otter population collapsed after centuries of being hunted for their furs, the entire ecosystem of the Monterey Bay shifted.  The bay's giant kelp forests disappeared and along with it most of the sea life that they supported and protected. Matt Simon in Wired's November 4, 2021 article on sea otters explains that, "Keeping the urchin population in check preserves the kelp, which is vital for the ecosystem in two main ways. First, the forest is a habitat for fish, which are the food source for birds and other marine mammals, like sea lions. Second, the seaweed is part of what scientists call a blue carbon ecosystem, meaning a coastal or marine area that sequesters carbon."    To get even closer to sea otters, I love to visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium and their sea otter information and exhibition space. The Monterey Bay Aquarium describes sea otters as aquatic environmentalists: "By munching on urchins, they help kelp forests flourish, and by crunching on crabs, they promote eelgrass in estuaries. But this marine mammal is endangered — and needs our help." The sea otter population along the Central California Coast has rebounded after being feared extinct early in the 20th Century. But a family of resilient sea otters were found near Bixby Bridge in 1938. Due to strong conservation efforts, California's sea otter population has slowly grown to the current number of around 3,000. A combination of legal protection — in 1977 sea otters became protected under the Endangered Species Act — and the efforts of nongovernmental organizations have prompted the sea otter resurgence. But the sea otter's future is still at great risk. Oil spreading south from a single tanker spill near San Francisco or off the pristine Central Coast would threaten the entire California sea otter population. With the recent oil spill in Southern California off Huntington Beach in October 2021, I was reminded how vulnerable our coastal ecosystem is to oil spills and climate change. Coast Guard officials determined that the spill came from a leak in a pipeline owned by Houston-based Amplify Energy that shuttles crude from offshore platforms to the shore. In response to this latest environmental emergency, I created my painting Ocean, Otters, Oil.  Gregg Chadwick Ocean, Otters, Oil (detail) (Oil Platforms Ellen and Elly Offshore near Long Beach, California) 40"x40"oil on linen 2021   As I painted Ocean, Otters, Oil and other artworks in my Fragile Earth series, I have been listening to the environmentally and socially conscious Australian band Midnight Oil. In 1990 Midnight Oil created a guerilla performance in front of Exxon headquarters in New York City with a banner reading, "Midnight Oil Makes You Dance, Exxon Oil Makes Us Sick," as they played in protest of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.  Midnight Oil has released a new song about our global climate crisis that illuminates the peril in which we find our fragile earth. This new Midnight Oil song Rising Seas has found its way to the top of my studio playlist and inspires me to keep speaking out, to keep creating, to keep caring about the future of our planet. Please visit Plants and Poetry Journal: Wildlife of the Underworld to see my artwork and more inspiring poems, prose, and artworks on our oceans and fragile ecosystem.

New Gregg Chadwick Interview by Laura Siebold in Art Squat (Occupy Art) Magazine   "The Other Art Fair edition at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica couldn’t have been a better place to give contemporary artist Gregg Chadwick a platform to exhibit his oil on linen paintings, especially as he creates his art in an old airplane hangar, as well. Gregg takes inspiration from important cultural and political figures and turns them into paintings, capturing moments and moods of contemporary America. Gregg’s series are very distinct in character – ranging from strong portraits of human beings, animals in the natural world, over medical portraitures to paintings that are inspired by meditation. A common element of Gregg’s paintings is his use of “internal illumination” to hold the viewer’s attention, his layered “Pentimenti” painting technique, and his tendency to create a glimpse of a path into the unknown future, told by his paintings multifaceted stories. Often, the artist draws ideas from poetry, novels, and music, then incorporating those elements into his paintings. Being renowned for his expressive art, Chadwick has exhibited in various galleries and shows across the U.S. and internationally; his paintings are part of many permanent collections. Gregg Chadwick is based in Los Angeles, California." - Laura Siebold in Art Squat (Occupy Art) Magazine Please visit http://www.art-squat.com/articles3/Gregg_Chadwick/index.php to read the entire interview.

Gregg Chadwick Year of the Tiger (Sumatran Tiger - CJ) 40" x 40 oil on linen 2021   In an auspicious kick off to the new year, Singulart has included  Year of the Tiger (Sumatran Tiger - CJ)  in their new Year of the Tiger collection.  This oil on linen painting is the first in a series of artworks depicting the characters in the Chinese Zodiac using animals in the Los Angeles Zoo as models and inspiration. The model for Year of the Tiger is the Sumatran Tiger named CJ. Sumatran Tigers are severely endangered in the wild and need our help so they do not become extinct. I first became aware of the fragile nature of our planet as an elementary school student. For Christmas one year, I asked my parents for the book “Wildlife in Danger” published by the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) They are still an important organization providing information, plans, and hope for our endangered earth. Worried about the environment as a kid, I drew pictures of animals constantly. Now, I am creating paintings that shed light on climate change, the beauty of the natural world, and our place with other species. Year of the Tiger was  first exhibited at The Other Art Fair in Los Angeles at Barker Hangar in September 2021 and continues to uphold the spirit of those born under the tiger's sign as we move into 2022. Gregg Chadwick The Great Sunset (Carmel) 24" x 30 oil on linen 2020 Over the years, I have gravitated to the beach as a place of peace and healing. My parents moved to the Carmel area when I was a student at UCLA so the Central Coast of California will always be a site of family gatherings and homecomings. Going for a run along the beach as the sun goes down fuels me. We are still not traveling much outside of Santa Monica, due to the coronavirus, so I decided to venture out through my paintings. The golden light of late afternoon as it blends with the pink of a Carmel Point sunset appeared through the veil of memory on my canvas. A quiet, poetic moment inspired by my family home and the poetry of Carmel's late, great poet Robinson Jeffers. I wish you peace and prosperity in this new year!    - Gregg Chadwick, January 2022 A visitor viewing work by Gregg Chadwick in the Recovery Justice: Being Well exhibition at 18th Street Arts, Santa Monica, California.  Photo by Geoff Palomino.

Visit Gregg Chadwick's Website

75 - David Bowie

 

Changes/ David Bowie 41" x 25.5" pastel on paper 2017

by Gregg Chadwick

75th Anniversary of his birth - David Bowie was born on this day in 1947.

His decades of groundbreaking music and his shape shifting persona, inspired so many of us little aliens in suburbia to fight against conformity and become our true selves.

My artwork looks back on Bowie when he released his haunting song "Where Are We Now?", which is as much a painting in soft greys as it is a song. A quiet rhythm of drums and synth warp and weft with minor key piano chords and Bowie's plaintive, elegiac voice.

Set in a Berlin of memory and dream, Bowie's voice and lyrics question the themes of human bondage, release, freedom, doubt, ageing, and death. Bowie lived in West Berlin between 1976 and 1979 in the Schöneberg district in a house with Iggy Pop while Brian Eno and Tony Visconti were helping record Bowie's Berlin trilogy of albums Low, Heroes, and Lodger in the now legendary Hansa Studios. Years later, Bowie looks back in "Where Are We Now?" and echoes his words about Low, "Berlin has the strange ability to make you write only the important things. Anything else you don't mention."

The political and the personal merge in my pastel painting of Bowie. We are left with existential questions and are reminded that bodies age, marriages end, friendships dissolve and memories fade. But Bowie's quietly defiant voice does not give in to any dying of the light.

Pictured: Changes/ David Bowie 41" x 25.5" pastel on paper 2017

Link at:https://www.saatchiart.com/.../Paintin.../25560/3303782/view

#Art #DavidBowie #HappyBirthday #InMemory #Portrait #ContemporaryArt #Music #Inspiration #RIP #Pastel @saatchiart @theotherartfair

Our democracy held. We the people endured. We the people prevailed.

One year ago, our democracy was attacked and our Constitution faced the gravest of threats. But We the People prevailed.

Now, it’s up to us to choose what kind of nation we’re going to be. pic.twitter.com/gqg3BT3vw1

— President Biden (@POTUS) January 6, 2022

"One year ago today in this sacred place, democracy was attacked -- simply attacked. The will of the people was under assault, the Constitution -- our Constitution -- faced the gravest of threats. Outnumbered in the face of a brutal attack, the Capitol police, the DC Metropolitan Police Department, the National Guard and other brave law enforcement officials saved the rule of law. Our democracy held. We the people endured. We the people prevailed."- President Biden

 

‘I will allow no one to place a dagger at the throat of democracy,’ - @POTUS pic.twitter.com/Fu2fbYP2mR

— Gregg Chadwick (@greggchadwick) January 6, 2022

You can’t love your country only when you win.

You can't obey the law only when it's convenient.

You can't be patriotic when you embrace or enable lies.

— President Biden (@POTUS) January 6, 2022

Last year, for the first time in our history, a president who just lost an election tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power as a violent mob breached the Capitol.

But they failed.

And on this day of remembrance we must make sure that such an attack never happens again.

— President Biden (@POTUS) January 6, 2022

 

Tune in as I deliver remarks to mark one year since the January 6th deadly assault on the Capitol. https://t.co/nvklC2pgl8

— President Biden (@POTUS) January 6, 2022

 

On #January6th, the former President incited his supporters who used violence to try to nullify the election. His supporters assaulted 140 police officers in an attempt to keep the former President in power.

Those who continue to deny these facts are cowards and traitors. https://t.co/nvSkYQmHhK

— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) January 6, 2022

First Dream, First Sale

 

In Japan the first dreams of the New Year, hatsu-yume 初夢, traditionally provide markers for the dreamer's upcoming year.

In that spirit, perhaps the first artwork sold in a new year provides inspiration for the months to come. My painting Monk Station is the first sale of 2022. 

 I was honored that Saatchi Art included an artwork of mine in their new Seeds of Optimism collection.

"Manifest a happy and bright new year with a joyous artwork by one of our top artists from around the globe." Curated by Bethany Fincher - Assistant Curator at Saatchi Art 

In my new interview with Art Squat Magazine, I discuss my Saffron Road series:

"Twenty years ago in Thailand, I woke up at dawn and spent the morning quietly and carefully observing the saffron robed monks on their morning pilgrimages. On my return to the U.S. later that week, I began to paint Buddhist monks, privately at first - as a form of meditation. Only later did I grasp the dharmic sense of responsibility inherent in this new body of work. I needed to paint these paintings. And I found that the audience I had developed over the years felt the need to see them also. They have given me their trust that I will create paintings that speak of our times but also provide clues to a future path into the unknown."

My painting Monk Station continues this theme and brings a saffron robed pilgrim into a 21st century urban moment. Inspired by a subway station in Montréal, this painting looks at the place of the spirit in our fast paced lives.

More on Monk Station at https://greggchadwick.blogspot.com/2021/09/monk-station.html

Collection at https://www.saatchiart.com/.../Seeds.../1376557/638724/view

#HappyNewYear #SeedsofOptimism #SaatchiArt #HatsuYume #contemporaryart #contemporaryartist #saffron #artcollector #buddha #buddhism

Happy Birthday Hayao Miyazaki

Happy Birthday Hayao Miyazaki! https://t.co/UOHEpcCKo3

— Gregg Chadwick (@greggchadwick) January 5, 2022

Each year I am pleased to wish Happy Birthday to the amazing Hayao Miyazaki! My first birthday post to Miyazaki from 2011 (reposted below with updates) says it all:

Taking Flight: Thoughts on the Art of Hayao Miyazaki on His 81st Birthday

by Gregg Chadwick


Celluloid Dreams at the Ghibli Museum, Mitaka, Japan

I woke up from a dream this morning that seemed to have been pulled from a Hayao Miyazaki film. In my dream a tender sapling reached towards the light as it sprouted from my wrist. Above, russet clouds moved in a cerulean sky. I look to my dreams as openings rather than fortunes. Yet, since I recently returned from Tokyo, I should remember that in Japan the first dreams of the New Year, hatsu-yume 初夢, traditionally provide markers for the dreamer's upcoming year.


Hayao Miyazaki
Sketch for Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi)
pencil and watercolor on paper 2001
(Ghibli Museum, Mitaka, Japan)


The vision and mystery of Hayao Miyazaki's work will surely provide inspiration for me throughout 2022. In December 2010, I was fortunate to visit the Ghibli Museum which was created to feature the art and films of Hayao Miyazaki and also the breadth of animation done by Studio Ghibli since its founding in 1985 by filmmakers Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata.

Flight plays an important role in many of Miyazaki's films and it is fitting that both the film company, Studio Ghibli, and the Ghibli Museum were named after an Italian airplane first produced before World War II: the Caproni Ca.309 Ghibli. The word ghibli in Italian refers to the hot dry winds that blow across the Sahara desert.


Caproni Ca.309 "Ghibli" In North Africa during WWII

Hayao Miyazaki was born on January 5, 1941 just months before Pearl Harbor and the brutal battles in the Pacific Theatre of World War II. As a small child growing up in greater Tokyo, Miyazaki drew scenes of aircraft and aviation most likely inspired by his father's family business which built airplane parts for Japanese Zero fighter planes and also in the later years of the war, by his remembrances of the waves of Allied bombers which firebombed much of Tokyo into smoldering ruins.


Still from Grave of the Fireflies ((Hotaru no Haka)) 1988
Created by Studio Ghibli. Directed by Isao Takahata.

Much of Miyazaki's mature work reflects his distaste for heedless violence and warmongering. Miyazaki also deeply cares about the environment and the place of natural beauty in a heavily industrialized Japan. Thirdly, many of Miyazaki's films feature a strong, brave, and resourceful main female character. I have been traveling to Japan since I was a kid in the 1970's and I am pleased to see that Miyazaki's vision for life in Japan seems to be bearing fruit. On his 81st birthday, I would like to give thanks to Hayao Miyazaki for his talent, vision, and deep concern for humanity. Bravo!




Hayao Miyazaki at 22
(Courtesy NTV)


Hayao Miyazaki
Sketch for Porco Rosso (Kurenai no buta)
pencil and watercolor on paper 1992
(Ghibli Museum, Mitaka, Japan)


Hayao Miyazaki
Sketch for My Neighbor Totoro (Tonari no Totoro)
pencil and watercolor on paper 1988
(Ghibli Museum, Mitaka, Japan)

One good thing about music

“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.” – Bob Marley pic.twitter.com/9UjV8UJIXQ

— Artists & Fans (@MySocialPoint) January 4, 2022

As 2021 Shifts to 2022

 by Gregg Chadwick

Gregg Chadwick

Wings of Desire

30"x24"oil on linen 2019

Theresa Brown Collection, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

As 2021 shifts to 2022, I think of years passing like film titles shifting on theater marquees. With that thought, on the day we lost Betty White at 99, I am posting my painting "Wings of Desire". In the spirit of writers Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Salman Rushdie, a bit of magical realism often finds its way into my paintings. In memory of Bruno Ganz and in homage to one of my favorite films by Wim Wenders, my oil on linen painting "Wings of Desire" depicts one of my favorite angels hovering by the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. Deep thanks @theresabrownrn2021 for loving the film and my painting so much that you had to purchase it!

Happy New Year Folks!

The painting is featured in @art_squat magazine's new interview with me in their 3rd Issue
http://www.art-squat.com/articles3/Gregg_Chadwick/index.php

#art #WimWenders #Authors #Artists #Actors #BettyWhite #happynewyear #happynewyear2022 #2022 @theotherartfair @saatchiart @singulartofficial @artsy @artspace @art_squat #WingsOfDesire #contemporarypainting #magicalrealism

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 

 

THIEBAUD VIA MORANDI from Victor Loh on Vimeo.

One of the great painters of the post-WWII era, and a wonderful man with whom to talk painting and art history. A titan. https://t.co/Qdj5GrMmcc

— Tyler Green (@TylerGreenBooks) December 26, 2021

“That’s what you do as a painter: You live on hope.”
—Wayne Thiebaud https://t.co/92G86na7F8 pic.twitter.com/t6IBWisU8C

— Austin Kleon (@austinkleon) December 31, 2021