Remembering Wayne Thiebaud — and appreciating Sacramento’s rich legacy in the arts

The loveliest Sacramento ever looked was on a Wayne Thiebaud canvas — the Delta painted in golden yellows and reds; farmland depicted in unexpected purples, pinks and oranges. The prolific Sacramento-born artist, one of the city’s most treasured talents, died at his Land Park home on Christmas at the age of 101.

It was the second time in a week that Sacramento mourned an iconic homegrown artist: Thiebaud’s death closely followed that of the literary master Joan Didion, who was born in Sacramento in 1934. The losses remind us that California’s capital city is more than just a company town for the state bureaucracy. We’re also fertile ground for artists and a champion for the arts — legacies due in large part to figures such as Didion and Thiebaud, whose work inspired generations of artists.

Thiebaud’s influence as a pioneer in his field extends well beyond his hometown and country. He is credited as a key figure in helping launch the Pop Art movement of the ’60s, which marked a shift from abstract expressionism toward accessible depictions of everyday objects and figures in real and recognizable ways.

Though he often depicted the mundane, Thiebaud’s work never verged on boring.

Many of his most recognizable works are portrayals of food. His extraordinary depictions of ordinary cakes, pies, sandwiches and even gumball machines are as appetizing as they are beautiful. Thiebaud’s trademark impasto style layered canvases thickly with paint, casting otherwise unremarkable layer cakes as richly frosted delicacies begging to be pulled from the canvas and eaten with a fork.

He is perhaps best known, however, for using complementary colors to outline his figures. In one 1982 painting, a potentially underwhelming tin of sardines practically emerges from the canvas thanks to pops of oranges and yellows, the oily fish individually delineated in bright, rainbow hues.

Yet Thiebaud did not just inspire his successors; he educated them, too. A professor emeritus at UC Davis, Thiebaud had taught there for more than 40 years. Even as a centenarian, he continued creating art and helping others do the same: Earlier this year, the Wayne Thiebaud Foundation gave $500,000 to expand a UC Davis artist lecture series.

Thiebaud, his colleagues and his students, among them the artists Bruce Nauman, Robert Arneson and Roland Petersen, improved and expanded the Davis and Sacramento art scenes while bringing international acclaim to the university.

On the passing of Wayne Thiebaud and Joan Didion, it would be wrong to assume that Sacramento’s art scene had dulled or deteriorated. In fact, quite the opposite: These two helped make Sacramento the burgeoning center for arts and culture that it is today.

From Chalk It Up to Wide Open Walls and the Warehouse Artist Lofts to newly renovated theaters and playhouses, the city is embracing the arts as never before. And we have the legacies of locals — some as famous as Thiebaud and Didion and many others not — to thank for that.

This story was originally published December 27, 2021 at 3:00 PM.