Copycat

An exhibition at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco explores the art philosophy of Wayne Thiebaud through the lens of his influences.

- BY JOHN O'HERN

Wayne Thiebaud (1920-2021), Betty Jean Thiebaud and Book, 1965-1969, oil on canvas, 36 x 30°. Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Wayne Thiebaud, 1969.21.

Wayne Thiebaud (1920-2021) wrote, "I believe very much in the tradition that art comes from art and nothing else. Art for me simply means doing something extraordinarily well. And doing it in such a way that it becomes rare, a tremendous achievement and a human experience symbolically reduced to an essential prime number or example."

We're all familiar with his "revelatory paintings that depicted a quintessentially American cornucopia of delectable—or dubious—diner and delicatessen foods," writes Timothy Anglin Burgard, senior curator at the Fine Art Museums of San Francisco. "His abstracted renderings, often mistaken for realism, transformed his prosaic subjects into poetic visions that mingle the sociological with the surreal." Burgard is curator of the exhibition Wayne Thiebaud: Art Comes from Art which will be shown at the Legion of Honor through August 17.

Wayne Thiebaud (1920-2021), A Sunday on La Grande Jatte (after Georges Seurat), 2000, oil on board, 616 x 11%*. Collection of the Wayne Thiebaud Foundation.