Appreciating Wayne Thiebaud

Wandering into the Allicar Art Gallery on the CSU campus in Fort Collins, I ran across a pretty cool painting of Wayne Thiebaud's, and it reminded me of how much I enjoy this artist's work. Thiebaud's work in a variety of media, using vibrant colors to depict simple objects from everyday life, is not only visually appealing but also symbolically or metaphorically engaging as a reminder of the art and beauty that is always around us. 

Clearly associated with the Pop Art movement, Thiebaud was not only prolific but widely influential in contemporary pop art. But as WashPost art critic Philip Kennicott observes in this cool profile from 2012, "Wayne Thiebaud’s artistic eye was so much keener than pop art confections." Honestly, until I read Kennicott's piece, I couldn't fully articulate why Thiebaud's work is so appealing and also important. But I was struck by his observation that:

We need art because we are not particularly good at looking at the world. We see things all the time, yet when some truth finally registers in the mind, we say, “I see,” as if our eyes were closed before this epiphany.