Two Wedding Cakes, 2015
Oil on wood panel
36 x 48 inches
Big Field, 2007
Oil on board
10 1/2 x 15 1/2 inches
Two Streets Down, n.d.
Oil on board
9 7/8 x 7 3/8 inches
Folsom Rocks, 1971
Oil on canvas
16 1/8 x 20 1/8 inches
Courtland Reservoir, 2019-2020
Oil on canvas
48 x 36 inches
Two Tulip Sundaes, 2010
Oil on canvas panel
14 x 17 inches
Shopper, 2015/2020
Oil on canvas
24 x 36 inches
Cupcake Window, 2018/2020
Oil on canvas
36 x 24 inches
“[Painting] is a wonderful combination of memory, imagination, and direct observation. A lot has to do with yearning. Primarily, what I’m interested in and always have been is this wonderful, personally involving search to find out all I can about painting, to be willing to take risks, and try things that don’t seem to be logical, and find out how my feelings and experiences as a boy growing up in American can be reflected in a painting.”
- Wayne Thiebaud
Acquavella Galleries is pleased to present Wayne Thiebaud from December 20 through February 20 at its new Palm Beach location. The exhibition serves as a compact retrospective of the distinguished American painter, who celebrated his 100th birthday this fall. Featuring eighteen works ranging from 1971-2020, the exhibition will be the first dedicated to a living artist in Acquavella’s Palm Beach gallery.
Wayne Thiebaud features many of the most celebrated subjects from the artist’s career. From iconic paintings of sundaes, cupcakes, and wedding cakes to striking, vertiginous cityscapes of San Francisco and luminous riverscapes of the Sacramento River Delta, Thiebaud reimagines American subjects and vistas in vibrant colors and unique perspectives. Today, seventy years after his first solo exhibition, he continues to produce new work and push his exploration beyond the subjects that have captivated him since the 1960s.
Photo of Wayne Thiebaud by Max Whittaker, August 11, 2020
Courtland Reservoir, 2019-2020
Oil on canvas, 48 x 36 inches
In several of his recent works, such as Cupcake Window (2018/2020) and Courtland Reservoir (2019/2020), Thiebaud revisits some of his most familiar themes, which he approaches in new ways through his choices of composition, palette, perspective, and technique. In Cupcake Window, Thiebaud paints rows of neatly arranged cupcakes, their frostings characteristically rendered in thick impasto, from a different perspective. The vantage point set from within the bakery, the viewer looks both at and over these delicious rows of treats which are placed in the foreground against the large, abstract expanse of the shop window. The painting unexpectedly becomes at once a study of geometric abstraction and of lusciously rendered form. In Courtland Reservoir, Thiebaud represents the watery landscape and farmlands of the Sacramento River Delta in vivid, candy-colored hues. Masterfully employing impasto, the artist applies thickly rendered paint to give life to the trees and their dramatically cast shadows, and also pulls the medium across the luminous cobalt pool of the reservoir to evoke the rippling surface of the body of water.
A fully illustrated hardcover catalogue will accompany the exhibition.
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MEDIA CONTACTS
For interviews, background and images, please contact:
David Simantov
Blue Medium, Inc
Tel: +1-212-675-1800 / david@bluemedium.com
Emily Crowley
Acquavella Galleries
Tel: +1-212-734-6300 /emily@acquavellagalleries.com
All works of art by Wayne Thiebaud are © 2020 Wayne Thiebaud / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS).
As he turns 100, the California artist's paintings of cakes, pies and other ordinary diner fare have become iconic.
By Emily Bobrow
Wayne Thiebaud shook up the art world in 1962 with paintings that were joyous, confectionary, and uniquely Californian. Since then, he’s worked steadily, producing sought-after pieces noted for their originality and impact on American art. On the eve of his 100th birthday, the artist says he’s “trying to learn to paint” and put a smile on people’s faces.
