The McNay Art Museum is pleased to present Wayne Thiebaud 100: Paintings, Prints, and Drawings, an extensive, celebratory survey featuring a full range of the California artist’s achievements on canvas and paper in an exhibition on view at the McNay from October 28, 2021 to January 16, 2022.
Opening in Thiebaud’s 100th year, the career-spanning exhibition of 100 objects is the largest survey of Wayne Thiebaud’s work in two decades. Artworks drawn from the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento and the collection of the Thiebaud Family and Foundation, many of which have never been shown publicly, as well as the artist’s newest body of work, circus clowns, reveal an extraordinary, expansive practice informed by memory, tradition, and imagination.
“Wayne Thiebaud is an artist’s artist,” said Richard Aste, McNay Director and CEO. “It is therefore so fitting that our Museum, which was founded by an artist, joins a national, touring celebration of this modern master’s beautiful body of work.”
Wayne Thiebaud (b. 1920) was raised in California and today is one of America’s greatest and most admired living artists. He made his reputation in the early 1960s with still lifes of comforting foods found at snack counters, cafeterias, and middle-class diners. Pies and cakes, ice cream cones, lollipops, and other delectables were painted with thick impasto, evoking a simpler time and place. By the mid-1960s, Thiebaud turned to the figure, and later landscape, where he gained new recognition for dramatic interpretations of San Francisco’s cityscape.
“Steeped in memories both personal and cultural, the art of Wayne Thiebaud is comfortingly familiar and evokes reflection on our own experiences with the people, places, and foods we love,” said René Paul Barilleaux, Head of Curatorial Affairs. “This exhibition explores the beauty and wonder within everyday objects in our own lives—just waiting to be discovered.”
Engaging in-gallery activities include a personality color quiz, foodie photo ops, tracing stations, and a #ThiebaudPhotoChallenge.
Wayne Thiebaud 100: Paintings, Prints, and Drawings is organized by the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA. The exhibition is organized at the McNay Art Museum by René Paul Barilleaux, Head of Curatorial Affairs; and Lauren Thompson, Assistant Curator.