News

This essay by UC Davis professor Simon Sadler about Robert Arneson's The Palace at 9 a.m. was first published in the 2007 catalogue for You See: The Early Years of the UC Davis Art Faculty. Arneson’s Palace was last shown at the museum in fall 2019 as part of Landscape Without Boundaries. 

Like so many of Wayne Thiebaud’s paintings, Cup of Coffee is unassuming at first look. This small white painting features a ceramic mug of coffee, just like one you’ve held countless times. In fact, it looks a lot like the IKEA mug sitting on my desk right now. And yet, in 1961 Thiebaud took a plain old “cup of joe” as his subject, and made a remarkable painting at a pivotal moment in his career.

On the occasion of the opening of the Manetti Shrem Museum in November 2016, artist, art critic and novelist Peter Plagens wrote this essay illuminating the maverick spirit of the artists and teachers who founded UC Davis’s art department.

By Constance M. Lewallen