AMERICAN, b. 1920
Wayne Thiebaud, an American painter and printmaker who is perhaps best known for his thickly painted American still lifes of such items as foods and cosmetics. He is often incorrectly associated with American Pop art because of his many images of banal objects. However, unlike Pop artists such as Andy Warhol and James Rosenquist, Thiebaud worked from life, not from media images, and his engagement was evident in his loose brushstroke, whereas a hard-edge painting style, signifying mechanical reproduction, was preferred by many Pop artists. Thiebaud’s paintings of consumer goods, portraits of friends and associates, landscapes near his northern California home, and vertiginous San Francisco cityscapes are richly painted and designed to call attention to form.