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Last fall, Acquavella Galleries mounted an extraordinary exhibition of nearly 45 years of paintings of mountains by Wayne Thiebaud – Wayne Thiebaud: Mountains 1965-2019. The critically acclaimed exhibition was accompanied by a catalog and included a live discussion with critic Michael Thomas, gallery director (and former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art) Philippe de Montebello, and Thiebaud. The wide-ranging discussion covered topics from Thiebaud’s love of mountains to his early years in New York and as a teacher, and the nature of abstraction versus representation to the importance of beauty, and was released as part of Acquavella Galleries ‘The Picture’ podcast. Recently, Acquavella Galleries also released this video of the discussion.

From Acquavella Galleries:

Distinct from traditional landscape paintings, Thiebaud’s mountain series invokes at once the conflicting natures of abstraction and representation. The works on view concentrate on the Sierra Nevada range and feature the artist’s immediately recognizable exaggerated palette, and meticulous impasto technique while introducing experiments with skewed perspective and sense of scale. To fully interpret his immense and daunting subjects the artist eliminates all signs of human presence. The abstracted, yet material mountains present the grandeur of nature’s force.

Wayne Thiebaud began producing landscapes in the 1960s, focusing on dizzying and dramatic depictions of San Francisco, flattened aerial views of the Sacramento River Delta, and foreboding representations of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Turning 99 this year, the artist lives and works in Sacramento, painting landscapes and portraits as well as his signature still lifes.

The podcast series and accompanying videos were produced by Bower Blue.