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Wayne Thiebaud

Wayne Thiebaud Quotes

Painter

Wayne Thiebaud is an American painter known for his depictions of candy, cakes, and everyday foods. His work is celebrated for its vibrant colors and unique perspective, and has had a profound influence on subsequent artists.

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All Art Paint Painting Ifs Painter Way Art Is Artist Ideas Kind

Famous Wayne Thiebaud Quotes

“An artist needs the best studio instruction, the most rigorous demands, and the toughest criticism in order to tune up his sensibilities.”

Needs Artist Order Demand Criticism Studios Tunes Instruction Sensibility Tune Up

Author:Wayne Thiebaud

“Morandi suggests we are all single in this world, hoping for independent repose. But our best opportunity for a community of excellence depends upon a collection of enlightened individuals.”

World Opportunity Individual Community This World Depends Independent Excellence Collections Enlightened Repose Best Opportunity

Author:Wayne Thiebaud

“If I don't have anything better to do that day, I'll copy paintings, generally by people who have some relationship to the work of the moment.”

People Ifs Moments Painting Copies Copying

Author:Wayne Thiebaud

“We all need critical confrontation of the fullest and most extreme kind that we can get. You can unnecessarily limit yourself by choosing your criticism.”

Needs Kind Limits Criticism Extremes Critical Confrontation

Author:Wayne Thiebaud

“Diebenkorn was a very good critic, a very tough critic, tough on himself, tough on others. He expected the finest.”

Tough Critics Very Good Expected Finest

Author:Wayne Thiebaud

“As far as I'm concerned, there is only one study and that is the way in which things relate to one another.”

Way Study Concerned Relate

Author:Wayne Thiebaud

“The figures... are not supposed to reveal anything... It's like seeing a stranger in some place like an air terminal for the first time. You look at him, you notice his shoes, his suit, the pin in his lapel, but you don't have any particular feeling about him.”

Firsts Looks Feelings Humanity Seeing Air Figures Particular First Time Shoes Stranger Suits Pins Terminal

Author:Wayne Thiebaud

“I'm a believer in the notion that artists who do good work believe in the ideas of extremes.”

Believe Ideas Artist Notion Extremes Believer Good Work

Author:Wayne Thiebaud

“I think of myself as a beginner. Sometimes that's the whole joy. If you could just do it, there'd be no point in doing it.”

Ifs Thinking Sometimes Whole Joy No Point Just Do It Beginners Inexperience

Author:Wayne Thiebaud

“The most important thing is that the work has to be solid [in terms of its formal structure] and that the work accomplishes what it strives to achieve. It has to be genuine - not mannered or stylistically driven.”

Important Term Achieve Integrity Important Things Structure Strive Accomplish Driven Genuine Formal Strife

Author:Wayne Thiebaud

“If you stare at an object, as you do when you paint, there is no point at which you stop learning things from it.”

Ifs Objects Paint Staring No Point

Author:Wayne Thiebaud

“I'm not just interested in the pictorial aspects of the landscape - see a pretty place and try to paint it - but in some way to manage it, manipulate it, or see what I can turn it into.”

Way Trying I Can Turns Aspect Paint Manage Landscape Manipulation Manipulate Pictorial Pretty Places

Author:Wayne Thiebaud

“Morandi gave an intimate view of his deepest thoughts. We watched him inquiring after the devilish questions of essences and substances.”

Views Essence Substance Intimate Inquiring Devilish Deepest Thoughts

Author:Wayne Thiebaud

“Painting is more important than art.”

Art Important Painting

Author:Wayne Thiebaud

“When you think of painting as painting it is rather absurd. The real world is before us - glorious sunlight and activity and fresh air, and high speed motor cars and television, all the animation - a world apart from a little square of canvas that you smear paint on.”

Thinking World Littles Real Air Car Television Painting Activity Paint Speed Absurd Glorious Real World Squares Sunlight Canvas Animation Motor Fresh Air High Speed Worlds Apart Motor Cars

Author:Wayne Thiebaud

“A painter is always overjoyed when anybody pays any attention to him at all, puts him in any category, calls him anything - as long as they call him something.”

Long Pay Attention Painter Recognition Categories Overjoyed

Author:Wayne Thiebaud

“I don't make a lot of distinctions between things like landscape or figure painting, because to me the problems are inherently the same - lighting, color, structure, and so on - certainly traditional and ordinary problems.”

Problem Figures Color Painting Ordinary Structure Traditional Landscape Distinction Lighting Figure Painting

Author:Wayne Thiebaud

“Art is one of the dirtiest words in our language; it's mucked up with all kinds of meanings. There's the art of plumbing; there's the art of almost anything that you can say.”

Kind Art Language Art Is All Kinds Plumbing

Author:Wayne Thiebaud

“The Gold Rush and the Pony Express made Sacramento a substantial place in terms of enterprise.”

Made Term Gold Enterprise Ponies Sacramento Gold Rush

Author:Wayne Thiebaud

“My sin as a painter is that I just want to paint anything I want to paint - and repaint.”

Want Sin Paint Painter

Author:Wayne Thiebaud

“A conscious decision to eliminate certain details and include selective bits of personal experiences or perceptual nuances, gives the painting more of a multi-dimension than when it is done directly as a visual recording. This results in a kind of abstraction... and thus avoids the pitfalls of mere decoration.”

Giving Kind Done Certain Bits Decision Results Painting Conscious Mere Details Visuals Dimensions Abstraction Personal Experiences Nuance Decoration Selective Pitfalls

Author:Wayne Thiebaud

“Every paint-stroke takes you farther and farther away from your initial concept. And you have to be thankful for that.”

Life Inspirational Art Inspirational Life Concepts Paint Strokes Initials Being Thankful

Author:Wayne Thiebaud

“Art means something very rare, an extraordinary achievement.”

Mean Art Achievement Extraordinary Extraordinary Achievement

Author:Wayne Thiebaud

“I haven't the slightest idea what art is, but to be a painter is something of which you have to prove.”

Art Ideas Havens Prove Art Is Painter

Author:Wayne Thiebaud

“Art is not delivered like the morning paper; it has to be stolen from Mount Olympus.”

Art Morning Paper Art Is Stolen Olympus

Author:Wayne Thiebaud

“Commonplace objects are constantly changing… The pies, for example, we now see, are not going to be around forever. We are merely used to the idea that things do not change.”

Ideas Used Forever Example Objects Pie Commonplace

Author:Wayne Thiebaud

“If we don't have a sense of humor, we lack a sense of perspective”

Ifs Humor Perspective Painter Sense Of Humor Lacking Famous Artist

Author:Wayne Thiebaud

“An artist has to train his responses more than other people do. He has to be as disciplined as a mathematician. Discipline is not a restriction but an aid to freedom. It prepares an artist to choose his own limitations.”

People Artist Discipline Train Response Aids Limitation Mathematician Restriction

Author:Wayne Thiebaud

“Common objects become strangely uncommon when removed from their context and ordinary ways of being seen.”

Way Common Objects Ordinary Uncommon

Author:Wayne Thiebaud

“My subject matter was a genuine sort of experience that came out of my life, particularly the American world in which I was privileged to be . . . . I would really think of the bakery counters, of the way the counter was lit, where the pies were placed, but I wanted just a piece of the experience. From when I worked in restaurants . . . [it was] always poetic to me.”

Thinking World Way Matter Wanted Pieces Subjects Genuine Restaurants Poetic Pie Privileged Lit Subject Matter Bakeries

Author:Wayne Thiebaud

“Discipline is not a restriction but an aid to freedom.”

Discipline Aids Restriction

Author:Wayne Thiebaud

About the Author

Born: November 15, 1920
Known for: Painter
Quotes: 31

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