University of California, Davis. Art Dept. -- Faculty Search this
Extent:
1 Linear foot
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Drawings
Sketches
Cartoons (humorous images)
Photographs
Date:
1944-2001
Summary:
The papers of Sacramento painter, printmaker, and teacher Wayne Thiebaud date from 1944 through 2001 and measure 1.0 linear foot. Thiebaud's prolific painting career is documented in this collection mostly through exhibition catalogs, printed materials, original artwork, photographs, and ephemera. His career as an art professor at the University of California at Davis is documented to a lesser extent.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of Sacramento painter, printmaker, and teacher Wayne Thiebaud date from 1944 through 2001 and measure one linear foot. Thiebaud's prolific painting career is documented in this collection mostly through exhibition catalogs, printed materials, original artwork, photographs, and ephemera. His career as an art professor at the University of California at Davis is documented to a lesser extent.
Of particular interest in the collection are ten large format sketchbook pages with numerous ink, graphite, and watercolor drawings of his typical imagery of pies, cakes, tie racks, San Francisco street scenes, Sacramento Delta landscapes, many figures, storefronts, counters, and personal notations regarding color, light, and ideas for the transformation of his imagery. There are also ten smaller cartoon drawings in ink on plain copy paper. In addition to several folders of exhibition catalogs, announcements, and other printed material, there is one folder of teaching notes and one folder of photographs, many of which include other artists, such as Chuck Close, Richard Diebenkorn, Richard Estes, Gregory Kondos, Roy Lichtenstein, Barnett Newman, Claes Oldenburg, Philip Pearlstein, Mel Ramos, Harold Rosenberg, and others. Also found are ephemera items, including a collectible watch with his imagery printed onto the face and band, a palette, brushes, and plastic lids from tennis ball containers used for mixing paints.
Arrangement:
The Wayne Thiebaud papers are arranged as five series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Printed Material, 1965-2001, undated (Box 1-2; 12 folders)
Series 2: Writings, 1981, 2001, undated (Box 2; 1 folder)
Series 3: Photographs, 1944-1990, undated (Box 2; 1 folder)
Series 4: Original artwork, undated (Box 2, OV3; 1 folder, 1 oversize folder)
Series 5: Original artwork, undated (Box 2, OV3; 1 folder, 1 oversize folder)
Biographical Note:
Wayne Thiebaud was born in Mesa, Arizona in 1920 and raised in Long Beach, California. After graduating high school, he worked as a free-lance cartoonist, commercial artist, and stage technician. He later landed a job at the Walt Disney studios as an 'in-betweener' filling in individual film frames started by animators. Thiebaud joined the Air Force in 1942 where he painted murals and began to create cartoons and illustrations.
After his service in the war, Thiebaud went to California State College in Sacramento to study art and art history. His work remained figurative but gained a conceptual dimension as he read, studied, taught, and exhibited a great deal in Northern California. During the late 1950s, Thiebaud spent time in New York City with artists such as Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Barnett Newman and other painters of their generation.
Thiebaud's work found its national audience in 1962 with his first exhibition, Wayne Thiebaud: Recent Paintings, at the Allan Stone Gallery in New York and his participation in the "New Realists" exhibition at the Sidney Janis Gallery during the same New York season. In that memorable year, when Pop Art burst upon the American cultural scene, Thiebaud's more painterly images of food and other familiar objects found an audience that has grown with each passing decade. Thiebaud's exhibition of store counters, suburban consumers, tie racks, cakes and pies seemed to comment upon American consumer culture as did his New York contemporaries. However, his thickly painted strangely illuminated forms had a pathos and a humor that was seldom found in Pop Art. Thiebaud's roots were more likely in the urban melancholy of Edward Hopper and the robust painterly style of Willem de Kooning.
Wayne Thiebaud has served as faculty member of the art department at the University of California at Davis for more than thirty years. At this writing, he lives and works in Sacramento, California while also maintaining a studio in San Francisco. He is still affiliated with the Allan Stone Gallery. Thiebaud's work is currently found in the permanent collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. His recent 2000-2001 retrospective exhibition organized by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, traveled the nation to critical acclaim and great interest from the general public.
Provenance:
Wayne Thiebaud donated his papers in 2001 to the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Use requires an appointment.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Occupation:
Painters -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Art teachers -- California -- San Francisco Search this
