TitleTennis Player (Self-Portrait)
Artist
Wayne Thiebaud
(1920 - 2021)
Date1985
MediumOil on plywood panel
DimensionsUnframed: 12 × 11 5/8 in.
Framed: 14 × 13 5/8 × 2 1/4 in.
SignedSigned at upper right, incised into the paint: "Thiebaud / 1985"; on reverse: "Thiebaud 1985; "Tennis Player" (Self-Portrait) / l hour December 21 '85".
SubmissionANA diploma presentation, October 1, 1986
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number1986.216
Label TextWayne Thiebaud first came to prominence on the West Coast in the early 1960s with his realistic paintings of luscious pastries, ice cream cones, and candies painted in enticing colors. Following his service in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II, Thiebaud, like numerous other California artists, worked as an animator for the Walt Disney Studios. In 1949 he turned to painting, and continued his formal education at California State University, Sacramento, where he received his B.A. in 1951, and M.A. in 1952. The first of his many solo exhibitions was presented by the Crocker Art Gallery, Sacramento, in 1951. In the last twenty years the artist has continued to paint confections and candy but now includes the Bay Area landscape among his subjects.Often associated with the Pop Art movement because of his subject matter, Thiebaud's painterly style was in sharp contrast to many Pop Artists, who strove to suppress all evidence of the artist's hand in their work. Thiebaud burst onto the New York scene with his first solo exhibition in New York at the Allan Stone Gallery in 1962 and has since been the subject of numerous museum and gallery exhibitions. "Tennis Player" ("Self-Portrait") was submitted by the artist to the National Academy in order to fulfill his associate's membership. He depicts himself with a hat shielding part of his face, and while the subject of a self-portrait is rare for the artist, his palette of contrasting whites, blues, and purples is unmistakable.
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