In watching a recent interview with Wayne Thiebaud, I was surprised to hear him say, with a look of tactful understatement, that he wasn’t really a fan of Pop Art.  This seemed a provocative comment. His work is thought of as part of the Pop Art phenomenon. He paints brightly colored toys and pinball machines, uniform displays of pies and other prepared foods yearning to be purchased. There are branded cereal boxes, cheap candies and racks of loud ties –  a deliberate look at slices of popular or commercial American culture. Pop Art has to do with a dive back into the world after the esoteric searching of Abstract Expressionism, with an ironic embrace of “low”commercial art, comics and design (perhaps with envy of its impact and energy). Or on a more complicated level, in Warhol, a passive/aggressive critique of popular culture, and at the same time a seductive invitation, enlivening and depressing by turns, to bask without guilt in our participation in it. Thiebaud’s look at the common objects we buy and use is decidedly different. For one thing, it is funnier and more affectionate. But  that is not all.


In a recent show of his still life and figure charcoal drawings at Paul Thiebaud Gallery in San Francisco, this drawing of a radio and coffee can was the first work on view. (see images of the whole show under exhibitions at http://www.paulthiebaudgallery.com/)

This rather somber look at a couple of objects is deceptively plain. There is humor in the observation of a quite stylish if inexpensive radio – oh, those clean almost streamlined edges, and the up-to-the-minute inclusion of a cassette player, the user-friendly switches on top – this is a cool radio, braced for competition in the marketplace. But in the end, it is the simple usefulness of its design that impresses. There is the Morandi-like (an artist Thiebaud admires) relationship between the larger and smaller object – the radio like a parent or mentor to the coffee can. Thiebaud creates a sophisticated arrangement of values. The MJB can is dark on the left, and as we read the drawing to the right from there, we alternate between dark and light chapters, interlocking and proportionate. More wit – the antenna and the shadows of the objects just touch the borders of the paper. If you think about it – coffee and music and news – here is a little tabletop microcosm of civilization, of humanity stimulating itself and exploring the world.

But seeing this time capsule of the once desirable radio and the MJB coffee can – I’m old enough to remember the constant duelling ads on TV for different brands of coffee – I didn’t think of waves of advertising or the American miracle of affordable products for everyone. I was reminded instead of a meditation exercise that a lot of people may have tried, the one with the raisin.

We think of raisins as a source of quick energy. You down a small box of them on a hike, and wash it down with a gulp of water.  Perfect. The meditation exercise is altogether different. It slows down time and expands perception. You quiet yourself as you hold a single raisin in your hand. You smell it. You look at it; you think about it. What is a raisin. What does this one really look like. How long did it take the sun to create those wrinkles. Where did the grape grow. Who worked to plant and pick it. To transport and box it, to display and sell it. Imagine the life of this one raisin. Then of course you get to eat it. Not before just putting it in your mouth though. Your mouth waters. You nibble it. You eat slowly. You remember when this specific sweetness (long before $7 slices of uber-chocolate cake) was a treat that transformed your childhood brain with delight. Minutes have gone by with this one raisin. You are crushed by gratitude and wonder.

Not to take this too far, but something like that occurred to me with the MJB coffee can.

Thiebaud spent lots of time and attention on it, and its presentation isn’t superficial. -What were the morning thoughts in the room when this can was opened and the smell of coffee filled the air; what happened to whom in the home during the time this can sat on the shelf. Who planted the beans and where. Who designed that classic coffee can shape which makes it so useful for other purposes. Who invented that MJB logo (Theibaud was a commercial artist himself).  Like other good still lifes, this one asks, what is the nature of Being  (what are we when we’re still?) and especially, what is Time (as Gauguin asked in his famous title, “where are we going?”) in which being is embedded. Thiebaud is so far here from an ironic critique or ironic celebration of mass produced culture. In this art experience (he’s quite a wizard, it’s just smudges on paper), time slows and meanders; Thiebaud presents objects with a dignity that is ignored, perhaps necessarily, as we rush onward to do what we have to do. These common things, worthy of prolonged consideration despite their widespread commercial manufacture, were made by us and for us, and have ended up with a mysterious life of their own.

The artists officially considered ‘Pop’ can’t be lumped together exactly, but Thiebaud has such a unique combination of warm humor and unembarrassed seriousness that he is on another track altogether. He isn’t afraid of putting traditional art making, the drawing, the values, the rendering, the color, before ideas. His relationship with commercial artists and designers – he acknowledges several as teachers and mentors – is one of respect. That’s radical.