Quick Summary
- Wayne Thiebaud is inaugural recipient
- Award recognizes innovation, impact and inspiration
Artist and professor emeritus Wayne Thiebaud will be honored as the inaugural recipient of the °”TV Chancellorâs Lifetime Achievement Award for Innovation at a ceremony on Tuesday, June 28. The award recognizes an acknowledged innovator whose career accomplishments have led to a long-term positive impact on the lives of others and who is an inspiring influence for other innovators. The recognition and award will be presented by Acting Chancellor Ralph J. Hexter as part of the °”TV Chancellorâs Innovation Awards event.
âWayne Thiebaud is a true innovator,â Hexter said. âHe constantly pushes himself as a painter, experimenting with brushstrokes, color, composition and different sources of light. His lifetime of exploration has inspired us to see the world in different ways.â
âPioneering workâ
Thiebaud, a painter and printmaker whose pioneering work defined an era, is best known for his renderings of the everyday, including food displays, pinball machines, lipsticks, and California landscapes and cityscapes, using a singular illustrative style. His contributions to creative expression, popular culture and artistic form through his groundbreaking approaches to art, color and content have made him one of the most important painters of our time.
His artworks are in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Chicago Art Institute, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among many other prominent institutions.
Part of â°”TV legacyâ
Thiebaud earned both bachelorâs and masterâs degree from what is now California State University, Sacramento. He joined the art department at °”TV as an assistant professor in 1960, where he continued his career until retiring in 1991.
After retirement, Thiebaud continued to teach classes at °”TV and has been an active volunteer adviser to the university. He and his family have made generous gifts to the campus to support art teaching, including donations of many of his own works. He is widely regarded as an inspirational figure by students, aspiring artists and those who admire his considerable body of creative work.
âWayne is such an important part of the °”TV legacy â that first generation of art faculty who revolutionized the way art was taught, thought about and practiced for themselves and throughout the world,â said Rachel Teagle, founding director of the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, where several of Thiebaudâs works will be on display when the museum opens in November. âPeople donât realize how truly radical some of Wayneâs work was when he first came to °”TV. He brought innovation to his teaching in ways that will no doubt continue to inspire and teach many future generations of students."
Thiebaud is the recipient of many prestigious honors including the Presidentâs National Medal of Arts, the National Arts Clubâs Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts, and the American Academy of Designâs Lifetime Achievement Award for Art.
At 95, he continues to make art.
The °”TV Chancellorâs Lifetime Achievement Award for Innovation is one of several awards to be announced at an event on June 28 to celebrate the impact that innovation at the university has on society.
For more on Thiebaudâs work and influence as an educator at °”TV, read The Art of Wayneâs World.
Media Resources
AJ Cheline, Office of Research, 530-752-1101, acheline@ucdavis.edu