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Selected Works

Two Wedding Cakes

Two Wedding Cakes, 2015

Oil on wood panel

36 x 48 inches

Big Field

Big Field, 2007

Oil on board

10 1/2 x 15 1/2 inches

Two Streets Down, n.d.

Two Streets Down, n.d.

Oil on board

9 7/8 x 7 3/8 inches

Folsom Rocks

Folsom Rocks, 1971

Oil on canvas

16 1/8 x 20 1/8 inches

Courtland Reservoir

Courtland Reservoir, 2019-2020

Oil on canvas

48 x 36 inches

Two Tulip Sundaes, 2010

Two Tulip Sundaes, 2010

Oil on canvas panel

14 x 17 inches

Shopper

Shopper, 2015/2020

Oil on canvas

24 x 36 inches

Cupcake Window

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

Press Release

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, 2020

Photo of Wayne Thiebaud by Max Whittaker, August 11, 2020

Text 2

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).

Portrait of Wayne Thiebaud
Artnet News
‘Enjoy It When You Have It, But Don’t Have Too Much’: Artist Wayne Thiebaud on How to Savor Cake While Staying Healthy at 100 Years Old November 13, 2020
Photograph of Wayne Thiebaud
The Wall Street Journal
Wayne Thiebaud's Vision of American Beauty November 6, 2020

As he turns 100, the California artist's paintings of cakes, pies and other ordinary diner fare have become iconic.

 

By Emily Bobrow 

Alta
Alta
Having His Cake and Eating It, Too October 12, 2020

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.