Wayne Thiebaud at the Fondation Beyeler
- When: January 29, 2023 - May 21, 2023
- this event is ended
- Place: Basel, Fondation Beyeler
- Region: Svizzera
Contemporary artArt Exhibitions in Basilea
At the beginning of 2023, the Fondation Beyeler is hosting a monographic exhibition of the extraordinary American painter Wayne Thiebaud (1920–2021), hitherto little known in Europe.
In his still lifes depicting everyday objects, Thiebaud evokes the promises of the "American way of life" in seductive pastel shades. At the same time, his astonishing portraits, multi-perspective urban views and landscapes highlight the versatility of this technically brilliant painter. With 65 works drawn from American public collections and private loans, the retrospective presents the most important thematic nuclei of the artist, inviting the public to discover his extremely original way of painting as well as his use of color which is perfectly suited to the adjective «tactile ». The painter, who became famous in the United States for his still lifes, pushes the expressive potential of the brush to the limits between the visible world and the imaginary world, shaping his own iconographic language that moves continuously between irony, joke, nostalgia and melancholy.
Wayne Thibaud is one of the major exponents of American figurative art and therefore falls within that tradition which includes painters of the caliber of Edward Hopper and Georgia O'Keeffe. Thiebaud grew up in the 1920s and 1930s in Long Beach, California. He developed an early interest in comics and cartoons and worked briefly in the animation department of the Walt Disney Studios before moving into commercial graphic design.
From 1949 to 1953 he studied art at San José State University and at California State University in Sacramento. Throughout his life he carried out the activity of teacher ending up training generations of artists and artists. Thiebaud worked far from the great artistic metropolises, oblivious to the dominant artistic movements of his time. His attention to objects of popular culture led him to be often associated with pop art, a membership in which the artist never recognized himself. At best, for his particular vision of the aesthetics of mass production and his constant focus on painting, Thiebaud can be considered a precursor of pop art. Thiebaud himself cited among his sources of inspiration Velázquez, Cezanne, Rousseau and Mondrian, but, as a cartoonist, he was also strongly influenced by commercial art and poster painting.
The curatorship of the «Wayne Thiebaud» exhibition is by Ulf Küster, Senior Curator of the Fondation Beyeler. It arises from the close collaboration with the artist's legacy and with his gallery Aquavella.... leggi il resto dell'articolo»
The exhibition catalogue, produced by Bonbon (Zurich), is published in German and English by Hatje Cantz Verlag, Berlin. The 160-page volume contains texts by Ulf Küster and Janet Bishop as well as the latest Wayne Thiebaud interview from 2021, conducted by Jason Edward Kaufman.
Title: Wayne Thiebaud at the Fondation Beyeler
Opening: January 29, 2023
Ending: May 21, 2023
Organization: Fondation Beyeler
Curator: Ulf Küster
Place: Basel, Fondation Beyeler
Address: Baselstrasse 101 - 4125 Basel, Svizzera
More info on this website: https://www.fondationbeyeler.ch/