At the opening of his retro spective in San Francisco last month, Wayne Thiebaud gave an aw-shucksy wriggle of the shoulders and declared, "I'm just a sign painter gone uppity." One may, with respect, demur. At 64, after decades of painting in the Bay Area, Thiebaud is one of the most gifted realist artists in America. At a time when so much new art leaves an iridescent slick of depletion on the eyeball, the group of 89 of his paintings and drawings, assembled by Curator Karen Tsujimoto at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, is the real thing, a distinct...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
