American figurative artist, best known for his paintings of ordinary household subjects and urban landscapes done with thick, impasto effects. Thiebaud spent over ten years working in New York and Hollywood as a cartoonist, commercial artist, publicity manager, and illustrator.
He spent four years serving with the US Army Air Force from 1942 to 1946. By 1947, he knew he wanted to become an artist. After graduation from Sacramento State College in 1951, he began began teaching in the Art Department of Sacramento City College where he remained for eight years. In 1951 he had his first one-man exhibition at the Crocker Art Gallery, Sacramento, California. From 1954 to 1957 he produced eleven educational films, for which he won the Scholastic Art Prize in 1961. He became a professor of Art at the University of California at Davis in 1960 and spent 16 years there.
Considered by some to be a pop artist, his early work portrayed objects found in diners and cafeterias such as pies and pastries. Later on, his scenes from everyday American life elicited comparisons to Edward Hopper.
He had many exhibitions in the USA, including one at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1981. In 2001, the Whitney Museum of American Art exhibited a retrospective of his work, the massive body of which includes subjects like the human figure, landscapes, city scapes. He called himself a painter rather than an artist.
Thiebaud was married twice. With his first wife, Patricia Patterson, he had two children, one of whom is the model and writer Twinka Thiebaud. With his second wife, Betty Jean Carr, he had a son, Paul LeBaron Thiebaud, who became an art dealer. He also adopted Betty’s son, Matthew. Wayne Thiebaud died at his residence in Sacramento on 25 December 2021 at the age of 101.
Link to Wikipedia biography