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The New Criterion article on Wayne Thiebaud’s Clown series

Posted on December 2, 2019, 7:28 AM, by jfriedman, under Wayne Thiebaud.

Wayne Thiebaud is about to reveal his most recent body of work: a selection of paintings and drawings from the new clown series will be on view starting December 8th at the Paul Thiebaud Gallery in San Francisco. In conjunction with the exhibition, The New Criterion just published “There ought to be clowns,”—a new article I wrote on the evolution of the series. It appears in print in December issue (special art issue), and online.

The New Criterion, Volume 38 Number 4

Wayne Thiebaud, Clown and Dog, n.d., Black brush ink on paper, ARS (Artists Rights Society).

With Wayne Thiebaud at the opening reception of “Clowns,” Paul Thiebaud Gallery, December 7, 2019.

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Tags: art issue, Clowns, drawing, painting, The New Criterion, Wayne Thiebaud

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Over the past seven years Wayne Thiebaud has made dozens of paintings, drawings, and etchings of clowns. Like much of his work, this latest series is in a sense autobiographical. During his boyhood in Long Beach he looked forward to the visits of a traveling Ringling Brothers circus and sometimes helped out behind the scenes in exchange for tickets. The costumes, faces, and antics of the clowns were the beginning of a lifelong fascination for him. The clown series is its culmination, in which the now 100-year-old artist revisits those early memories. In December 2019 Wayne Thiebaud unveiled a selection from his clown series at the San Francisco gallery founded by his son, Paul Thiebaud. The Laguna Art Museum exhibition will be a version of the Paul Thiebaud Gallery exhibition, featuring more than forty works. Fully illustrated with 56 artwork reproductions. Essay by Dr. Julia Friedman. Interview with the artist by Janet Bishop, the Thomas Weisel Family Chief Curator and Curator of Painting and Sculpture at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Hardcover: 100 pages; ISBN-10: 0578798573ISBN-13: 978-0578798578
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The New Criterion article on Wayne Thiebaud’s Clown series

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