The artists paintings of cakes, bathers, landscapes, and cityscapes represent a luscious American sublime.
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That both were younger than him tells you he wasnt stuck in any ideological aesthetic rut.
He spent nearly the entirety of his 101 years in California, specifically in Sacramento.
There, he taught at UC Davis.
(Bruce Nauman was his student.)
I met him, once, when I lectured in the 1990s at UC Davis.
He sat in the front row.
Until that moment, however, Id never really thought about his work much.
Afterward, he told me he felt this work in his nerves and muscles.
He asked if I would like to play tennis with him (he played his whole life).
I am sorry I didnt.
How we see was paramount to Thiebaud.
He told the New YorkTimes,I dont agree with Duchamp that the eye is a dumb organ …
I think the eye has a mind of its own and there are different ways we see.
He is most widely known for his juicy pictures of voluptuous confectionary in shop displays and on countertops.
Its an eternal dinner in these works.
These are the things of dorm-room posters and fridge magnets and made him immensely popular.
His work sold for millions.
The works that pull the rug out from under me are his cities and landscapes.
Here, Thiebaud unleashes his visionary powers.
Soon theres no space here at all.
Nothing stays put; everything is amorphous, molten, forming.
His paintings are sundials.
His worlds are populous, lived in, but always empty.
We are lost in time, suspended in deserted cities and the California noir of Raymond Chandler.
Then there are his landscapes, my favorite of all.
He only painted tamed, man-made landscapes, but he released something feral within them.
And us.I hated him for these works.
No, not really I was just jealous.
It never rains in a Thiebaud painting.
The darkest day he ever painted was only partly sunny.
He is a master of scorched sunlight and sapphire watery blues.
I have never lived in year-round light, warmth, and the outdoors.
I become nostalgic for things I will never know.
