Wayne Thiebaud - written by Noel Madrid
Wayne Thiebaud will be one hundred years old this November, he still paints every day.
His images are simultaneously intimate and epic; abstract and representational. Thiebaud’s career as an artist and educator has been long and colorful. Starting his professional life as a commercial illustrator and cartoonist, Thiebaud made the leap to fine artist in his thirties, relatively late to the game. To this pursuit he has brought a calm tenacity and a work ethic rarely rivaled. Associated early on with the Pop-art movement Thiebaud transitioned from signature images of cakes and pastries to weightier landscapes and figurative compositions as his career progressed. In addition to his studio practice, he has held multiple teaching positions in the Bay area. I wonder if Thiebaud felt the breadth of his impact during those early painting days or if such thoughts were overshadowed by his sense of responsibility to his practice. “...You get up, and you go to work, whether you like it or not...That’s what I thought painters do” Thiebaud muses in an interview with KQED. Perhaps the secret to his success is no secret at all. More than any one achievement, the impressive truth is that he does everyday, the most vital thing. Thiebaud goes into the studio and puts in the work.
Wayne Thiebaud, Ripley Ridge, 1977. Oil on canvas, 48 x 36in
I’m attracted to his paintings as much for their subject matter as for his handling of the paint. Thiebaud insists that the physicality of the medium holds as much ground as his subjects. This is clear when watching him work; he applies thick layers from loaded brushes, pushing the paint into contours and ridges that aid the motion of the composition. In other areas, Thiebaud uses larger brushes and knives to smooth and sculpt a luscious surface. This materiality of surface as well as his willingness to deviate from perspectival space allows his images to hang in suspension between abstraction and representation; a balance not easily achieved or accepted. Still, what these works convey is not the distillation of some perfect form or space but an affection for the place, the subject, the object.
Looking at one of Thiebaud’s Landscapes, I don’t see an agenda, a timeline, or a grand statement. I see Thiebaud working in earnest with an image and his chosen medium. When I give time to one of his works, I share an experience with Wayne Thiebaud the painter; or Thiebaud the draftsman or printmaker. Any one of his images reinforces the idea that there is no quick fix and no substitution for the gritty business of working through a painting. Yet that is where all the excitement lies. “I don’t believe in success.” states Thiebaud in a 2006 Christies studio visit, “When we surrender ourselves to that, I think we’ve lost something special.” Such a statement sets the tone for his way of working, his determination to continue learning and to see in a unique way. Thiebaud embraces the craft and language of painting, defying any particular movement. He is a painter’s painter; certainly for this painter an inspiration to keep putting in the work.
Wayne Thiebaud, Road Through, 1983. Oil on canvas, 24 7/8 x 30 in.
SOURCES:
KQED Spark interview 2009 < https://youtu.be/LTZJfenUpsA>
Christies studio visit interview 2016 <http://www.christies.com/features/Wayne-Thiebaud-Studio-visit-7643-3.aspx>
Margaretta M. Lovell, “City, River, Mountain: Wayne Thiebaud’s California,” Panorama: Journal of the Association of Historians of American Art 3, no. 2 (Fall 2017), <https://doi.org/10.24926/24716839.1602.>