Wayne Thiebaud: Nostalgia for the Commonplace

Wayne Thiebaud - Cut Meringues - 1961 - Oil on canvas - 16 x 20" (40.6 x 50.6 cm) - Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) New York (click photo for larger image)Wayne Thiebaud (b. 1920) is an American painter and printmaker who is perhaps best known for his thickly painted still-lifes of such items as foods and cosmetics. Although he is often associated with Pop Art—this designation isn’t wholly accurate. Unlike Pop artists, Thiebaud worked from life, not from media images. In addition, his renderings are characterized by loose, highly visible, brushstrokes, as opposed to the hard-edged, mechanical style of Pop Art. 

As a painter and a teacher, Thiebaud has always been interested in Realism, though his subject matter is not typically associated with that approach. By 1960, Thiebaud had developed a distinctive visual vocabulary centered on food. His work incorporates “familiar items that are often regarded, and sometimes disdained, as popular symbols of mass consumption in American society.” Unlike the works of many Pop artists, however, whose works sometimes suggest a condescension for the symbols of popular culture—Thiebaud insists that his subjects are born of nostalgia—not contempt. In addition, his oeuvre also includes landscapes and figurative art.