Wayne Thiebaud was born in Mesa, Arizona in 1920. Soon thereafter, he moved to California where he was raised and graduated from California State College at Sacramento. Thiebaud started his career in art as a commercial animation painter at Walt Disney Studios, drawing “in-betweener” on characters such as Goofy, Pinocchio, and Jimmy Cricket (Hurwitz). It wasn’t until the 1960’s, during the Pop era of Warhol, where Thiebaud started gaining prominence in the fine art field. Thiebaud has had numerous solo exhibitions including shows at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City in 1971, Arizona's Phoenix Art Museum in 1976, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1981, and Gallery Hito in Tokyo in 1982 (Hurwitz). Outside
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Thiebaud achieves this through his simplicity in his artwork, exemplified through his work, Lunch Counter, from the book Delights. “In its simplicity and directness, “Thiebaud's work exemplifies American realism”, neither sentimental nor romanticized, it is completely straightforward and honest (Hurwitz). While his images are often incorrectly associated with American Pop art, Thiebaud is “unique in that he works from life”, evident by “his loose brushstroke, whereas a hard-edge painting style, signifying mechanical reproduction, was preferred by many Pop artists” (Wainwright). The ability to embody such uniqueness in commonplace object is achieved through discipline. Thiebaud says, “Discipline, rather than freedom, is the essence of his teaching; self-expression and emotion are deliberately eschewed. "An artist has to train his responses more than other people," he explains. "He has to be as disciplined as a mathematician. Discipline is not a restriction but an aid to freedom. It prepares an artist to choose his own limitations. An artist needs the best studio instruction, the most rigorous demands, and the toughest criticism in order to tune up his sensibilities. Indeed the discipline is self evident in the painstaking details of the lines in his landscape painting, Levee
Thiebaud achieves this through his simplicity in his artwork, exemplified through his work, Lunch Counter, from the book Delights. “In its simplicity and directness, “Thiebaud's work exemplifies American realism”, neither sentimental nor romanticized, it is completely straightforward and honest (Hurwitz). While his images are often incorrectly associated with American Pop art, Thiebaud is “unique in that he works from life”, evident by “his loose brushstroke, whereas a hard-edge painting style, signifying mechanical reproduction, was preferred by many Pop artists” (Wainwright). The ability to embody such uniqueness in commonplace object is achieved through discipline. Thiebaud says, “Discipline, rather than freedom, is the essence of his teaching; self-expression and emotion are deliberately eschewed. "An artist has to train his responses more than other people," he explains. "He has to be as disciplined as a mathematician. Discipline is not a restriction but an aid to freedom. It prepares an artist to choose his own limitations. An artist needs the best studio instruction, the most rigorous demands, and the toughest criticism in order to tune up his sensibilities. Indeed the discipline is self evident in the painstaking details of the lines in his landscape painting, Levee