Wayne Thiebaud, a painter known for his lush, colourful paintings of cakes and San Francisco cityscapes that combined sensuality, memories, and a hint of melancholy, died at 101 years. His gallery, Acquavella, announced his death in a statement released on Sunday.
“Even at 101 years old, he worked most days in the studio, driven by, as he stated with his customary modesty, ‘this almost neurotic fixation with trying to learn to paint,'” according to a release from the gallery. Thiebaud, the “Dean of California Painters,” drew on his previous work as a Disney animator, sign painter, and commercial artist.
While some saw Thiebaud’s hot dogs, bakery counters, gum ball machines, and candy apples to be instances of pop art, he never saw himself as a follower of Andy Warhol. Even he did not approach his themes with the sarcasm that the pop movement advocated.
According to the artist’s gallery, Acquavella, the American painter noted for his rich still-life pictures of cakes and magnificent San Francisco vistas has died at 101.
Many reviewers said that the core topic was paint and the act of painting itself: the glittering colour and sensual texture of the liberally applied paint. He slathered on the paint so thickly that he frequently carved his signature into the canvas rather than using it with a brush.
Many of his paintings were edged in neon pinks and blues, giving the items glowing. The shadows were frequently a deep blue. “No one accomplished more to reanimate the worn old genre of still life painting in the previous half century than did Mr. Thiebaud with his images of industrially controlled food products,” a New York Times writer applauded his “wry vision of modern materialism” in 2004.
Source: CBC News
