Wayne Thiebaud is best known for paintings of frosted cakes, slices of pie and ice cream cones rendered in thick, luminous color. But the Sacramento artist, whose work became synonymous with those images, devoted decades to another discipline that rarely took center stage.
“The Unknown Thiebaud: Passionate Printmaker,” on view through March 8 at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts, brings that lesser-known body of work into focus. The exhibition includes more than 60 prints made across Thiebaud’s long career, tracing a sustained engagement with printmaking even as his reputation as a painter grew.
“Even though he’s extraordinarily well known for his lushly painted canvases, he had a lifelong passion for printmaking,” said Alan Porter, the exhibition’s curator. “He was a fast painter, but printmaking is an intensely time-consuming process.”
Thiebaud, who died in 2021 at 101, produced more than 100 prints and nearly 400 paintings. He returned repeatedly to printmaking over the years, often revisiting the same images and subjects, adjusting technique, color or medium to achieve different effects.
Later works, particularly from the 1970s onward, reflect familiar themes: San Francisco’s steep, narrow streets; the Sacramento Delta; mountain landscapes; and the everyday objects that also populate his paintings — cakes, pies, doughnuts, paint cans and yo-yos.
“He would come back to the same image over and over,” Porter said, “but he was getting a different effect.”
One example is “Van” (1988), which appears in multiple variations. “The original print was black and white,” Porter said. “But Thiebaud kept coming back to tint it with pastels or watercolors.”
The exhibition highlights the range of printmaking techniques Thiebaud employed, including etching, drypoint, lithography, screen printing, woodcut and monotype. Much of his etching work was produced at Crown Point Press in California, where he collaborated closely with master printers.
Although Thiebaud is often associated with Pop Art because of his interest in mass-culture imagery, his work predates that movement. Paintings and prints from the 1950s and early 1960s preceded those by artists such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.
“Some of his work resembles Pop Art, but it’s not,” Porter said. “It’s almost surreal.”
Artist’s background
Born in 1920, Thiebaud moved with his family to California as a child. During his school years, he spent a summer apprenticing at Walt Disney Studios, drawing in-between frames for animated characters including Goofy, Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket. He earned $14 a week
He later studied art and education at Sacramento State College, earning a bachelor’s degree in 1951 and a master’s degree in 1952. After teaching at Sacramento City College, he joined the faculty at the University of California, Davis, in 1960. He taught there for 42 years, retiring in 1990 but continuing to teach without pay until 2002.
In 1961, Thiebaud met the art dealer Allan Stone, who would represent him for the rest of Stone’s life. Stone’s daughter, Heather Stone, assisted Porter with the Sebastopol exhibition. A documentary film about Stone, “The Collector,” directed by another of Stone’s daughters, Olympia Stone, will be screened Feb. 28 at the center, followed by a discussion.
Porter, who also curated the Sebastopol Center for the Arts’ 2024 exhibition “Reverations,” said the goal of the current show is not to revise Thiebaud’s legacy, but to expand it — revealing an artist who returned, patiently and persistently, to the demanding processes of printmaking alongside his better-known painted work.
If You Go
What: “The Unknown Thiebaud: Passionate Printmaker”
When: 10 a.m. Tuesday through Sunday through March 8.
Where: Sebastopol Center for the Arts, 282 S. High St., Sebastopol.
Admission: $15, $10 for students. Free admission Feb 21-22.
Information: sebarts.org, 707-829-4797.
Events:
1-3 p.m. Sunday, Feb 8: “Printing with Wayne,” a moderated panel discussion with Emily York and Courtney Sennish, two master printers who worked extensively with Wayne Thiebaud at Crown Point Press. $25, entry to the exhibition included.
3-5 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 28: Screening of “The Collector,” a film about Allan Stone, gallerist to Wayne Thiebaud, with director Olympia Stone in conversation with John Cooper. $15.
