April 26–June 14, 2024
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
I imagine this sonnet posted on a wall in Thiebaud’s studio as he chooses and works on his various summer themes. Delicious ice cream cones, cupcakes, girls in bathing colorful swimsuits long stretches of the beach along the Pacific ocean.
This exhibition of paintings works on paper and prints is first since his death at the age101 in 2021. Regarded one of America’s finest painters his career spanned some 80 years a career that brought us views of his native California, his family and friends and the content of everyday life in America: highways, delis, bakeries and the modern skyscraper. But there was nothing ordinary in the manner in which he documented what he painted a master of both refined line and intense observed color
Keep it simple he told his students and remember , “ Art is not delivered like morning paper; it has to be stolen from Mt. Olympus “ it must be imbued with greatness.
Like a student of sociology he noted and documented so many parts of the American life, character and subject. At first they were united under the label of Pop art but missing was the irony of the subjects. Thiebaud is ultimately a realist but the edge of his work is how he composes and
then edits his subject keeping things brief and to the point. Sandwiches; deli counters; cakes and cheese boards… banal when you write the words ….but remarkable when you see the finished painting or watercolor.
Encyclopedic in scope there seems to be little that doesn’t merit observation and then a painting or prints or watercolor. An again this was the misinterpretation of these being imagined as representations of Pop art . Like a Dutch master Thiebaud planned the painting as being solemn representation of figures as well as objects. Nothing to distract us from the subject at hand. Two Cakes 1980 prime example , a pair of home made cakes the same but different flavor and color palette. Their
symmetry outstanding a real treat for the eye. This is Thiebaud at his best a painterly geometry , forms reduced to their basic shape and then explored using many layers of paint replicating frosting. Cheese Display 1969 again relies on reducing each cheese to a geometric shapes but here color is flat . This process or formula is used and reused as Thiebaud builds an encyclopedic overview of American life from tables settings to highway traffic and farm lands. And as commonplace his focus he manages find in the ordinary a way to keep the viewer amazed delighted and charmed by his visual musings. The magic of each work jumps off canvas or paper “I believe very much in changing, “explained Thiebaud in an interview,
“ I paint people, places, and things, which gives me the option of painting anything. I would like to believe I could paint anything, any day, any time, any way in which I would like to do.” And in the end he fulfilled his own desire as demonstrated by this concise and extremely handsome exhibition. The exhibition is accompanied by an extremely well researched and designed catalogue, written by Steven
Nash former Director of the Palm Springs Art Museum. It is a great addition to a Thiebaud library.
