Wayne Thiebaud
Wayne Thiebaud
Wayne Thiebaudis an American painter widely known for his colorful works depicting commonplace objects—pies, lipsticks, paint cans, ice cream cones, pastries, and hot dogs—as well as for his landscapes and figure paintings. Thiebaud is associated with the Pop art movement because of his interest in objects of mass culture, although his early works, executed during the fifties and sixties, slightly predate the works of the classic pop artists. Thiebaud uses heavy pigment and exaggerated colors to depict his subjects, and...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPop Artist
Date of Birth15 November 1920
CityMesa, AZ
CountryUnited States of America
Wayne Thiebaud quotes about
If we don't have a sense of humor, we lack a sense of perspective
Every paint-stroke takes you farther and farther away from your initial concept. And you have to be thankful for that.
Common objects become strangely uncommon when removed from their context and ordinary ways of being seen.
I think of myself as a beginner. Sometimes that's the whole joy. If you could just do it, there'd be no point in doing it.
If you stare at an object, as you do when you paint, there is no point at which you stop learning things from it.
My subject matter was a genuine sort of experience that came out of my life, particularly the American world in which I was privileged to be . . . . I would really think of the bakery counters, of the way the counter was lit, where the pies were placed, but I wanted just a piece of the experience. From when I worked in restaurants . . . [it was] always poetic to me.
I'm not just interested in the pictorial aspects of the landscape - see a pretty place and try to paint it - but in some way to manage it, manipulate it, or see what I can turn it into.
Morandi gave an intimate view of his deepest thoughts. We watched him inquiring after the devilish questions of essences and substances.
We all need critical confrontation of the fullest and most extreme kind that we can get. You can unnecessarily limit yourself by choosing your criticism...
If I don't have anything better to do that day, I'll copy paintings, generally by people who have some relationship to the work of the moment.
I don't make a lot of distinctions between things like landscape or figure painting, because to me the problems are inherently the same - lighting, color, structure, and so on - certainly traditional and ordinary problems.
The Gold Rush and the Pony Express made Sacramento a substantial place in terms of enterprise.
The most important thing is that the work has to be solid [in terms of its formal structure] and that the work accomplishes what it strives to achieve. It has to be genuine - not mannered or stylistically driven.
Morandi suggests we are all single in this world, hoping for independent repose. But our best opportunity for a community of excellence depends upon a collection of enlightened individuals.