Art and The City; Artist’s Depictions of San Francisco I: Wayne Thiebaud
Wayne Thiebaud, Street and Shadow, 1982-83, 1996 http://www.crockerartmuseum.org, Oil on linen
35 3/4 in. x 23 3/4 in. Crocker Art Museum, gift of the artist’s family
“Vertiginous.”
This is the way Wayne Thiebaud (the painter, not artist, he insists) describes the landscape of San Francisco. Various dictionaries define this word as having an aspect of great depth, drawing the eye to look downwards. A giddy precipice. Inducing a feeling of vertigo, dizziness or of whirling. Alfred Hitchcock must have had the same thought in mind when he set his 1958 psychological thriller, Vertigo, in San Francisco. Against the backdrop of a gleaming cityscape James Stewart and Kim Novak play cat and mouse as they plunge their cars over the city’s precipitous streets.
There are other cities with hills and expansive views such as Lisbon and Hong Kong, but it is the imposition of a relentless grid of streets with a willful disregard for the terrain that gives San Francisco its unique quality. No discussion of gardens in San Francisco is complete without considering the city’s topography and layout. Behind the many densely packed wood-framed structures lie hidden small “pocket” gardens. Some are placed well below the dwelling, while others perch precariously above, accessed by winding wooden stairs.
Wayne Thiebaud, 24th Street Intersection, 1977. Oil on canvas, 35 5/8 x 48 in, Private collection, copyright Wayne Thiebaud
Wayne Thiebaud once lived down the street from me in the Potrero Hill neighborhood of San Francisco. I never did get up the nerve to borrow a cup of sugar (or a tube of Alarizon crimson) from him, but it was a source of neighborly pride that he was there, just the same. Thiebaud’s paintings of mass produced pies and cakes vaulted him into the “pop art” scene of the 1950’s. With paint as thickly applied as the fillings and frostings he depicted, Thiebaud’s work revealed an optimistic regard for his subjects, and did not share the deprecating satirization seen in later pop art. In 1973 Wayne Thiebaud moved to Potrero Hill, at the time a working class enclave of Russian and Eastern European immigrants. Located on the bay below downtown, this neighborhood of low rents, sunny fog-free weather and spectacular views from its grid of plunging streets attracted writers such as Alan Ginsberg (who wrote Howl here), Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and the artist Robert Bechtle.
Potrero Hill where Thiebaud Lived is placed directly below the cityscape of downtown.
Inspired by the setting, Thiebaud produced paintings of fantastic cityscapes, with cliffs for streets punctuated by improbable gardens. All were executed using strong, saturated pigments reflecting the brilliant technicolor light of the city.
Wayne Thiebaud, Down Eighteenth Street, 1980 Oil and charcoal on canvas http://hirshhorn.si.edu/
Thiebaud presents not a literal representation of San Francisco, but the idea of the city. Wayne Thiebaud describes the process of painting this series: I’ve always painted out of doors, with a french easel, some in the city, but not very much. So I started from the San Francisco intersection, and I remember one time painting on the street, and a nice man came along, an older fellow, and he stayed longer than most people would, and he watched, and finally he couldn’t resist, and he said, “I’ll be God-dammed. You are painting the intersection.” He couldn’t believe it. so I knew from the beginning I was in trouble.
After painting directly on the street, and making 20 or 30 pictures that way, I felt none of them were very successful. The reason for not feeling that they were delivering on what I had hoped for had to do with some sort of dramatic feeling in this particular San Francisco landscape, and the on-site works weren’t reflecting this. And during this time, I had a chance to talk to the critic Brian O’Doherty, and he was relating to me how Edward Hopper worked on his city pictures. He made lots of different sketches, watercolors, drawings, and then he put them together, like a stage set. So I thought I would try that and see if it might help. I went back to the studio, and began to make a lot of drawings with graphite or charcoal on paper, which I could move around a lot, kind of playing around with them. These drawings seemed to offer more of the visual feeling that was closer to the idea of San Francisco. So, when I returned to painting again, the city itself looked more like the composite drawings I had been making. An that dialogue between what was actually there and what was made up became the basis of the entire series
Wayne Thiebaud: Cityscapes
Exhibition catalog with an interview with the artist by Richard Wollheim. 52 pages with color reproductions. Published by Campbell-Thiebaud Gallery, San Francisco, 1993
http://crownpointpress.stores.yahoo.net/waythiebcit.html
Wayne Thiebaud Apartment Hill, 1980 http://www.nelson-atkins.org/
It is the San Francisco neighborhoods whose names end in “Hill” (Potrero Hill, Telegraph Hill, Russian Hill, and Nob Hill) where Thiebaud’s cityscape paintings come to life. In a walk I took recently up and down these hills, the glancing light of the late afternoon sun placed some streets in deep shadow, while the apartment towers on the summits were illuminated like signal beacons.
Tourists crowd six deep before the crooked Lombard street as they will do before the Mona Lisa. I want to ask “Haven’t you seen a winding street before?” Looking closer, however, at these families from India and France, those polite Dutch kids with their blond dreadlocks, I see that everyone is smiling, laughing and appear quite giddy. This is the city as amusement park. The camera in my hand is nothing unusual on these streets. Indeed, because of it, I fit into the scene.
As I continue my walk to Nob hill I come to suppose that in a Thiebaud cityscape we are all a brand of tourist, where what is real is so improbable that only the fantastic comes close to reality. San Francisco as depicted by Wayne Thiebaud blurs the concepts of truth and the idea, where the city itself becomes a kind of polychrome dreamscape.
Philip,
I really enjoyed your post. I have always wanted to know more about Wayne Thiebaud, and as usual, you used perfect examples, stunning photos and poetic text. Being an ex-San Franciscan, I feel like I’m home for a few minutes. Thank you.
Jerry
Comment by Jerry Burt — 24. September 2008 @ 01:14
Just terrific stuff, Philip and thank you. As mentioned, I know The City, myself. My brother used to live up on Clayton Street - among other places - another “Hill” (I think Portrero?) and we spent inordinate amounts of time walking. That has to be the most camera-friendly city in the US. And you are correct as well about the light - amazingly crisp, clear, almost other-worldly brightness and clarity, once the fog takes off. For those who wonder, San Fransisco is utterly unique and for reasons that shock the rookie there for reasons other than they may have thought.
I also notice you also took a break from posting. How ironic, I think we posted at the same interval! Hey, great minds think alike! steve-o
Comment by Steve — 24. September 2008 @ 15:59
HI, Philip! This post really puts a big smile on my face! I’m going to forward to all my old SF friends! This brings back such great memories of the 60’s! Thanks!
Comment by Kathry/plantwhateverbringsyoujoy.com — 30. September 2008 @ 16:38
Hi Jerry!
Comment by admin — 30. September 2008 @ 18:18
Hi Steve!
Thank you for your interesting and insightful comments. I have been away from my computer for a while. I have not had the time to comment back or to check out other blogs for a bit. Hopefully I can now return into the swing of things. I am looking forward to seeing your latest post.
I did get a chance on Sunday to work in the garden, which was great. I am hoping to work on some new posts soon.
Best regards,
Philip
Comment by admin — 30. September 2008 @ 18:58
Hi Kathryn,
Thanks for your comments!
This was not strictly a “garden” post. I do think that art and the environment shape our thoughts on the garden.
In San Francisco the fabric of the city, the landscape and setting, the architecture, roads and the diverse mix of people and the art produced from it all is so prevailing, so “in your face” that I felt compelled to photograph and write about it.
My heart fills every morning when I see the cityscape below my hilltop garden gleaming in the fog and sun.
Best regards,
Philip
Comment by admin — 30. September 2008 @ 19:27
After a walk up and down those hills, you have had a major workout.
Comment by Mother Nature's Garden — 1. October 2008 @ 21:54
Too right! It was a workout, but a lot of fun. I love walking around town.
Thanks for your comment, Mother Nature!
Comment by admin — 1. October 2008 @ 22:49
“Vertiginous” would seem like a perfect adjective to describe this beautiful city — some of your photos, and certainly, some of the paintings, are positively dizzying!
Comment by Nancy Bond — 3. October 2008 @ 22:58
Hi Nancy!
Thank you so much for your comment.
You are just the best!
Regards,
Philip
Comment by admin — 4. October 2008 @ 00:05
Philip, I can’t bare the exquisite pleasure of your postings. Like marzipan in the foot of my Christmas stocking I know it’s there and the sublime pleasure of devouring it only makes me want to have more of it so I daren’t look at it. It is not just a chunk of marzipan you understand, but a cleverly crafted miniature replica of a carrot with chocolate detailing made by an artisan that makes the whole experience so, so, undeservedly heavenly all mine. Must be your writing, photos, and Thiebaud pies in my mind influencing me here.
OK down to it… your photos - art in themselves they are perfect neighbours to Thiebauld’s as you are/were to him, his loss you never borrowed the cup o sugar. And 24th Street Intersection ‘77 so fantastic - captures the “idea” he talks about in his artist’s statement. And isn’t that what we try to accomplish in our gardens “the idea” of nature which is so much more about the feeling of nature rather than just replicating her?
Streets of San Francisco fantastico!
Comment by Shauna — 8. October 2008 @ 05:33
Shauna,
You just blew me away with your comments. I so appreciate them.
Thank you for the Marzipan in the stocking comment! What an incredible thing to read this morning, or any morning.
Yes, that was the underlying idea of this post. You got it. Thiebaud’s paintings of the city are an abstraction, and in a city such as this, the fantasctic is what is abstracted. In my garden I want to recreate a wildflower meadow with naturalized plants popular in 19th century plant lists, and that is really just an abstraction of the observed. The “idea” of plants is what you so marvelously wrote in your posts on pupkins, datura and more in Garden Brae.
You are a pleasure to know.
Best regards,
Philip
Comment by admin — 8. October 2008 @ 19:06
Philip,
I’ve been meaning to comment on this entry ever since the first time I read it. As usual it’s one of your perceptive descriptions and appreciations. I’d seen some of Thiebaud’s cityscapes before–in particular, there’s a print of the city he did several years back that has always impressed me. I’d always thought the perspective in them was highly exaggerated, but seeing the city again through your images, I see that what he was doing was a stylized, highly playful retelling of the sense of the city’s unique vertical space that remains surprisingly true to its subject. I’ve seen a reproduction of one of his Yosemite paintings, with cliffs rising to confront the viewer, that had a similar verticality. I see now that his San Francisco and Yosemite works are cut from the same cloth, and tell similar stories. Thank your for sharing his work!
And by the way, I love your “street photography” of the tire marks decorating the one-way street arrow!
James
Comment by lostlandscape — 15. December 2008 @ 01:36
Hi James!
Thanks so much!
I appreciate your comments.For me, gardens are more than plants, they are also about a place, and inspiration. I am glad that you saw the inpiration for Thiebaud’s work. I enjoyed working on this. Your thoughtful and insightful comments gives me a nice sense of completion to this post.
Best regards,
Philip
Comment by admin — 15. December 2008 @ 19:22