Wayne Thiebaud (1920–2021) was a painter and educator whose images of cakes, pies, everyday objects, figures and landscapes made him one of the most celebrated American artists of his generation. Throughout his career, Thiebaud remained deeply committed to the traditions and physical possibilities of painting. He used thickly applied pigment, luminous color and exaggerated shadows, often outlining forms with contrasting bands of color. This technique, known as halation, creates the distinctive sense of light and vibration that animates his work. Although his paintings of American food and consumer goods brought him national attention in the 1960s and led to his association with Pop art, Thiebaud resisted the label. His subjects were grounded less in mass-media imagery than in observation, memory and a fascination with how paint could transform familiar things. Place was equally important to Thiebaud. After settling in Northern California, he repeatedly returned to the landscapes around him. His San Francisco cityscapes exaggerate the city’s steep streets into dramatic, almost impossible spaces, while his paintings of the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta and Central Valley transform rivers, fields, levees and agricultural patterns into brilliantly colored, often abstracted landscapes. Thiebaud joined UC Davis in 1960 and taught for more than 40 years, helping establish its art department as a nationally important center for artistic experimentation. A devoted and influential teacher, he emphasized close observation, disciplined practice and continual learning. Thiebaud gained national attention with his 1962 exhibition at New York’s Allan Stone Gallery and inclusion in New Realists at Sidney Janis Gallery. A major retrospective organized by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in 2000 traveled to the Whitney Museum of Art and other institutions. His imagery also reached a broad popular audience through numerous covers for The New Yorker, beginning with Jolly Cones in 2002. In 2018, the Manetti Shrem Museum presented Wayne Thiebaud: 1958–1968, examining the pivotal decade in which he developed his distinctive approach to painting.