Dear Interim Dean Ari Kelman,
My name is LG Williams. I am writing about the recent exhibition Wayne Thiebaud Influencer: A New Generation, which is currently on view at the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at the University of California, Davis. Rachel Teagle and Susie Kantor curated the show.
I received my M.F.A. from UC Davis and taught in the Art Studio department as a lecturer in the late 90s. I suspect you might be unaware of this exhibition. As an alumnus, former lecturer, and artist, I am writing to you with my professional observations. They may persuade you to regard this public art exhibition with disdain and dread.
Who am I to make such a bold claim? It's a good question, especially considering the current sad state of the Art Studio faculty and its grim output over the past few decades.
Although my work is counter-cultural, it has been featured alongside famous artists in national and international exhibitions and art fairs. These engagements inspired renowned authorities, including Professor Donald Preziosi (Emeritus Professor of Art History, UCLA; Slade Professor of Fine Arts, Oxford University), to include me in their publications.
As an academic, I have taught in many institutions, including a stint as a lecturer at UC Davis alongside Distinguished Professor Wayne Thiebaud. During this period, I also enrolled in the largest classes in the Art Studio and Art History Department. I even had the privilege of spending a year alongside UC Davis Art Professor David Hollowell—albeit pro bono.
Though not formally trained, I have gained insights into a few of the most mysterious artworks in Western Art. Specifically, I'm speaking of the Mona Lisa (Leonardo, c. 1503-1506) and The Conversion of St. Paul (Caravaggio, 2nd version, c. 1600-01)—as well as half a dozen other masterpieces of equal complexity and artistic ingenuity.
City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco was the first to embrace and sell my published works, including eight poetry books. The store's support is my most prized achievement.
As for my contribution to art pedagogy, Cengage Publishing published my workbook, Drawing Upon Art (Wadsworth / Cengage Learning, 2009, ISBN: 0495572365), with its hugely influential introductory Art History textbook, Art Through the Ages. A similar volume for Gombrich's Story of Art (PCP Press, 1996, ISBN: 1523700742) is available on Amazon.
As an art and cultural critic, the opening sentence from my clandestine introductory essay, written under a pseudonym, for E Pluribus Venom: The Art of Shepard Fairey (Gingko Press, 2008, ISBN: 1584232951), was explicitly praised, and Steven Heller selected the book to be amongst 2008's Top 10 Art Books of the Year for The New York Times Sunday Book Review.
Additionally, The Times Literary Supplement (TLS) recently reviewed two of my recent publications, Wasted Words (PCP Press, 2016, ISBN: 1517287103) and Dust Bunnies (PCP Press, 2016, ISBN: 152327266X) with the art critic and MacArthur Award recipient Dave Hickey. The UCLA Hammer Museum, SITE Santa Fe, The Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMoCA), and The Las Vegas Contemporary Art Center (CAC) hosted live events and appearances for these publications. Coincidentally, a copy of Wasted Words recently appeared on a bookshelf in Netflix's Velvet Buzzsaw (2019), the art-horror film (with gawdawful horrible art) set in Los Angeles.
These accomplishments were achieved through self-sacrifice and perseverance, and without institutional support, often under harsh conditions.
Dean Kelman, I learned about your long association with the highly regarded Times Literary Supplement on Google. Indeed, you know something extraordinary about the TLS. Your Wikipedia page even describes you as "a regular contributor to The Times Literary Supplement." Respect.
A notable fact is that the editor of one of my TLS-reviewed books holds degrees from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Brown University, too. But I don't think you have an undisclosed enabler working on your behalf. I might add that a graduate from the University of Oxford (also a regular TLS contributor) is ghostwriting this author's alleged "sole contributions" before submitting them to unaware editors or journals. This author went as far as sending ghostwritten materials directly to the 100-year-old UC Davis Emeritus Professor Wayne Thiebaud! More about this sometime later. Because I'd love to hear your thoughts on this truly bizarre story.
Dean Kelman, you're no slouch—unlike the recent and current artistic hacks employed in the Art Studio Department under your leadership. And one of your former predecessors was no slouch either.
I had the unpleasant task of meeting this predecessor, the UC Davis L & S Dean, at the beginning of my second year of graduate school. The Dean wanted to understand why I, some random art student from the Ozarks, refused to attend classes with the first two DEI hires. I told the Dean, 'They suck.
The astute administrator knew it was true, having approved these hires himself.
I later realized the reason was, 'Better to eat you, my dear.'
As a result, the administrator reassigned me to study under Robert Arneson. Crisis averted.
Looking back, it is evident that the decline of this Art Studio Department began with the hiring of unqualified professors.
Since then, every search committee has selected one incompetent applicant after another. These hacks have been consistently rewarded with titles such as 'The Distinguished Professor of Art Robert Arneson Endowed Chair' or 'Department Chair' shortly after receiving their first paycheck.
Unfortunately, the trend of granting tenure to underqualified artists has become common. This practice is particularly problematic as it ensures that mediocre artists continuously teach unsuspecting students. It would help if you ended such practices in the Art Studio, but I know that can't happen.
Most students need to learn better. Few have the instinct or courage, as I did, to reject the path to artistic mediocrity, which the current UC Davis Art Studio faculty fully embraces and encourages. I'll be glad I won't be around to see the series of love letters (as UC Davis curator Teagle described it to The Sacramento Bee) The Art Studio department will get in a few decades. O.M.G.
I can't understand how any UC Davis art student can tolerate the vacuous art or 'art instruction' from 'Professors Robin Hill, Hearne Pardee, Gina Werfel, etc. These notions defy artistic or imaginative credulity. However, this is the current situation.
True, your Art Studio department isn't alone. Thousands of artists and academic delinquents fill this 'academic discipline,' polluting every art institution nationwide. It always has been this way, and it always will. Given our discussion, former UC Davis Art Studio alumni Professors Eve Aschheim (M.F.A., '87) at Princeton University and Amy Podmore (M.F.A., '87) at Williams College deserve special praise for their unwavering commitment to artistic mediocrity.
The senior leadership at Princeton University and Williams College know as little about Art Studio as the UC Davis senior leadership. This might give you some consolation. It makes perfect sense in The Age of University, Inc., where art under these conditions is irrelevant. These two examples are living proof.
The apparent lack of talent among these two UC Davis Art Studio alums was evident from the first week of graduate school. Even more so on that weekend when the 'art critic' John Yau appeared on campus and got taken for a ride by a grifter. What a schmuck.
Today's art sycophants are numerous and debased, stopping at nothing to achieve personal gain and career advancement, even if it means usurping all standard social media conventions. For instance, one recently photobombed America's most privileged students, completing the most banal drawing exercises in Art Studio pedagogy. (https://archive.is/DnQIN).
There must be a way to prevent the further corruption of higher education by these talentless Art Studio apparatchiks. Given such egregious instances of systemic failure, perhaps 'Saturn Devouring His Children' should become official policy in the UC Davis Art Studio department. These two artistic hacks perpetuate artistic ineptitude and institutional malfeasance. The never-ending cycle of artistic decrepitude in your Art Studio department (teacher/student; student/teacher; repeat) brings me back to the subject of this letter.
* * * * *
The current Art exhibition at the Manetti Shrem Museum, "Wayne Thiebaud Influencer: A New Generation," deserves your attention. This exhibition starts with halfhearted fairy-tale premises, which quickly transition to a full-blown nightmare for all involved.
Allow me to share my candid observations with you. This year marks the 100th birthday of UC Davis Professor and master painter Wayne Thiebaud. While this exhibition should have been a celebratory landmark showcase and an excellent opportunity to explore his achievements, it falls disappointingly short.
The curators chose two distinct groups of artists to exhibit alongside the great master. The first group allegedly consists of blue-chip "contemporary artists," while the second group is made up of Thiebaud's "former students."
Pay careful attention to what is being presented here. The curators make a clear and bold distinction between "contemporary artists" and "former students." This significant distinction highlights a great artistic divide and reveals a brutal cultural reality and creative truth. Such honest distinctions are rarely evoked in polite art institutional literature.
Please let me explain. The "contemporary artists" are presented as an elite and nationally recognized gathering of celebrity artists, almost as famous or accomplished as Thiebaud himself. Allegedly, these artists were so inspired by Thiebaud's "personal journey to find meaning and reinvention" in art that they, too, achieved their own national and international renown.
Unfortunately, Thiebaud's "former students" never achieved anything approaching "contemporary artist" status—even after studying directly under him for many years. Though no further explanation is given, this second group was so inspired by Thiebaud's "personal journey to find meaning and reinvention" in painting that they presumably went on to receive... a passing grade at the end of his course. That's some consolation, I guess?
In the context of exhibition literature, this statement represents one of the rarest instances of curatorial honesty I've ever read.
* * * * *
Circling back for a closer inspection, long after the effects of art-stargazing have left our thoughts, let's try to discover the shared qualities among the distinguished "contemporary artists." Unfortunately, off the top of my head, I can't think of any shared qualities—apart from their tireless commitment to making art for money's sake. The exhibition curators seem equally unable to identify any related qualities beyond the artists' price tags.
An apparent lack of vision in any Ivory Tower art exhibition indicates, to a seasoned observer, a great void or opportunity. Naturally, such a void must be filled with something. Often, this void becomes a platform for uninspired curators to introduce unrelated but "quantifiable" statistical measurements to justify the event's expense or the selection of the artists—data that rarely, if ever, corresponds to the qualities found in great artists and artworks.
That is precisely what we discovered in this exhibition. The "contemporary artists" are merely signs, opportunistic bits of data (e.g., female/male, black/white, young/old, citizens/non-citizens, etc.) gathered by curators to share with their supervisors, exhibition benefactors, and LinkedIn network. Predictably, this exhibition's curators chose to fill this curatorial void with conventional virtue-signaling.
Unfortunately, virtue-signaling is a poor substitute for inviting cogent artistic talents and imaginations that might have recognized and responded to Thiebaud's outstanding accomplishments. Given the limited pool of artists to draw from, this would have been a significant challenge for the curators. This effort would have required some thought and imagination from their substantial "starting salary of $185,000 annually."
In this instance, because of the exhibition's central theme (Wayne Thiebaud) and the museum's remote location (California Central Valley), the curators' heavy-handed application of virtue-signaling appears even more exaggerated and pernicious than usual.
These curators must have known virtue-signaling was a poor sentiment to evoke and hang alongside Thiebaud. After all, virtue-signaling is anathema to Thiebaud's painting practice.
* * * * *
It would be insightful to examine the diversity in Thiebaud's figure paintings by searching online: No. Not one. Virtue-signaling was never part of Thiebaud's public persona or discourse.
However, there was a perfect opportunity to present diversity and merit alongside Thiebaud for this exhibition. The curators could have invited a former Thiebaud painting student who achieved significant artistic accomplishments as a famous contemporary artist. But, as it happened, this renowned contemporary artist/former student was presumably "overlooked" by the curators.
The curators missed an opportunity to include the accomplished artist Fritz Scholder, a former Thiebaud student. This particular artist can no longer be found in Sacramento or Northern California. Instead, a curator would have to travel to Southwest Art's headquarters in Santa Fe to discover him—the famous Native American painter Fritz Scholder.
Fritz Scholder (1937–2005) is the lone Thiebaud painting student who became a significant artistic influence in the art world during Thiebaud's 30-plus years of teaching. Scholder's public reception, renown, and achievements dwarf all the former Thiebaud painting students in this exhibition combined by a country mile.
Why was Fritz Scholder omitted from this crucial exhibition? This glaring omission raises significant questions about the curatorial process and intent.
In 1957, Scholder moved with his family to Sacramento, California, where he studied with Thiebaud. Thiebaud subsequently invited Scholder to join him, along with artists Greg Kondos and Peter Vandenberg, in creating a cooperative gallery in Sacramento. Scholder went on to achieve national and international distinction as a Native American artist. His works appear in museum collections worldwide, including The Crocker Art Museum, only 25 minutes from the UC Davis Art Museum.
Thiebaud's impact on Scholder is immediately apparent. Just look at Scholder's style and technique. He skillfully assimilated Thiebaud's painterly conventions in his quest to depict Native Americans and the Southwest—just as Thiebaud transitioned his formula from candy stores and baked goods to figures, cityscapes, and landscapes.
Scholder's absence from this landmark Thiebaud survey is inexplicable and raises many troubling concerns and questions. Namely, why is Scholder's art absent when everyone in the art world knows he is the only famous painter Thiebaud taught during his long career?
One thing is clear about Scholder's absence from this exhibition: if one genuinely tries to determine Thiebaud's lasting teaching legacy, one will not find it. Thiebaud's lasting teaching legacy is alive and evolving where Scholder's influence spread—across the Southwest, in the lands of the Native American and Southwest artists who admire him. Scholder's admirers are making and selling art respectfully because they never drank the Kool-Aid and never became full-blown artistic sycophants.
In other words, despite the bold, false claims made by the exhibition organizers, Thiebaud's direct impact or legacy is absent in the rarefied blue-chip art world.
I suspect the simple reason for Scholder's absence is that acknowledging his influence would be politically and artistically explosive. Nobody at UC Davis, Acquavella Galleries (principally Philippe de Montebello), Sotheby's, Christie's, or The Paul Thiebaud Gallery—let alone the other "former students"—would want to publicly and honestly acknowledge the Thiebaud-Scholder Art legacy.
As a self-described specialist in Native American and Western History, Dean Kelman—not to mention the "Politics of Memory"—I suspect you might find this omission quite problematic, too.
* * * * *
Thiebaud remained silent throughout his career on historical events. This restraint must have taken quite a lot of effort, given all the United States went through during his career—leading up to the apparent coup d'état or storming of the United States Capitol in 2021—a watershed event decades in the making.
As you might imagine, two new aspirants have recently entered the Thiebaud sphere with an unnecessary solution to this invented "problem" or "career oversight." They lured and convinced the 100-year-old Thiebaud to exhibit cloistered "self-commentary art"—horrid depictions of self-loathing, detrimentally rendered by the aged master himself—the so-called "Clown" series. This is the same Thiebaud who, for over sixty years, avoided the messy depths of human events or emotions—aside from depicting a heart on a store-bought cake now and then. This is the same Thiebaud who once remembered that UC Davis's Robert Arneson, Bruce Nauman, and William Wiley had already masterfully stamped clowning-around artworks in their prime—to great national acclaim decades ago.
Thiebaud recently exhibited a few ill-advised private cartoon-themed paintings and drawings of "circus" figures. These images depict carnies attempting to convey remorse, apology, consolation, and self-pity shortly before and after Thiebaud's painting Pinball Machines (1962) sold for $19,135,000 at Christie's O.N.E. sale on July 10, 2020, setting a new world record for the artist at auction.
Indeed, the old painter has much to regret. This unfortunate series highlights Thiebaud's advanced age and a terrible loss of creative concentration. For instance, the decade he spent unable to act the part of an "authentic" painter—i.e., a drunken, emotionally unhinged, and debauched abstract expressionist. Or the time he allowed Pinball Machines (1962) out of the studio in its current state?
Given Thiebaud's advanced age, these unpleasant memories and images may be unsurprising. As people move into the later stages of life, memories from childhood or long ago become more accessible, as the person has had longer to process and remember these specific events.
However, someone must intervene and remove the keys from Thiebaud's gatekeepers. The 21st century is not the time to ask American audiences to pity wealthy individuals—even in Orange County. But nobody will tell the 100-year-old famous painter that his demented private pity paintings and old fart drawings aren't funny, and, frankly, they suck. There is too much money to be made and too many fraudulent reputations in need of bolstering.
To put this into context: If Thiebaud couldn't act or paint like the drunken and reckless Willem de Kooning (1904–1997) when he was young and physically able, how is he now going to pull off the grace, subtlety, and nuance of Marcel Marceau at 100 years old? Thiebaud can't come close to achieving something that delicate and unique at his advanced age. And, sadly, it shows.
Why not pass the time by painting another 100 or 200 ice cream cones, for Christ's sake, or playing bingo?
The 'idea' behind this series isn't about creating hype for a dismal, pitiful Wayne in his late art period. That time is long gone. This isn't about launching a caretaker savings reserve. Thiebaud has been wealthy for quite some time—his nest egg is undoubtedly adequate. Nor was this an assignment designed by a geriatric psychiatrist to help Thiebaud resolve early childhood traumas and miseries.
Ultimately, this cartooned caper is another instance of opportunistic 'organizers' gaslighting to bolster their uneventful and unrewarding late careers. Disenfranchised vampires have latched onto the senile centenarian artist who is clearly out of his depth—if not out of his mind.
Show him some mercy and dignity. These 'last-last-last period commentary artworks' should never see the light of day, regardless of the desperate attempts by lonely ghostwriters to justify them.
Lastly, this orchestrated miscue mocks the masters who achieved true reckonings and breathtaking insights late in life. These extraordinary artists include Goya, Manet, Monet, Munch, Picasso, Mondrian, Duchamp, Bacon, and Hopper. Not Wayne Thiebaud—he never had those balls.
Colton Klein wrote about Hopper's last masterpiece, "Two Comedians from 1966, " an existential tour de force representing the culmination of Edward Hopper's career. His final painting is a seminal and poignant work that embodies his art's most important and defining themes."
After seeing Thiebaud's so-called 'Clown Series,' these great late artists would turn their backs on him, embarrassing the organizers of this exhibition in the process. This disastrous epilogue to Thiebaud's final period is an unmistakable stain on his legacy.
* * * * *
Thiebaud's staid and unsullied career (before the clowns) was guided by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, unlike his equally distinguished teaching colleague, Robert Arneson. Arneson single-handedly created new opportunities to pursue contemporary ceramics after Peter Voulkos—a remarkable global achievement. One of Arneson's most famous and controversial works is a large bust of George Moscone, the mayor of San Francisco, who was assassinated in 1978.
Thiebaud's aloof public attitude was what President Richard Nixon (and his followers) hoped for. Such detachment meant that any civic, artistic actions were as simple as choosing between cakes or pies—which Thiebaud excelled at representing. This disinterestedness left unseen special interests free to wreak havoc with little to no opposition wherever and whenever they wanted.
As a lifelong cartoonist and illustrator, Thiebaud's work often depicted puritanical commercialism and mass-produced innocence. His compositions seem constructed by a chaste apologist, contextually indifferent or blindered, following minimal art's standard practices at the time. In contrast, curious and fully engaged representations revealing hidden truths can be found in Thiebaud's contemporaries and fellow Sacramento natives Joan Didion and Herb Caen.
Thiebaud's deep-rooted, unwavering proselytizing might also explain his preference for white—a white quite different from Didion's. There is white proclaiming the power and glory of goods, white as a blank slate, and white as context. Indeed, white often remains the only context in a Thiebaud painting.
Thiebaud-White triggers associations of 'a friendly universe,' pristine evocations of the 'fullness of joy,' and 'never-ending progression.' After all, Thiebaud was raised Mormon. His father was a bishop in the L.D.S. Church when Thiebaud was a teenager.
I speculate that Thiebaud used more heavenly white paint than all other contemporary painters combined, except Agnes Martin and Robert Ryman. If this insight hit the art tabloids, Thiebaud would be immediately canceled in today's cancel culture.
* * * * *
However, the selection of "contemporary artist" Andrea Bowers for this exhibition is as alarming as gratefully appreciated. Bowers's inclusion will hopefully soothe and prevent the Guerrilla Girls from sending loud, hairy, scary protesters east along the I-80 or north up the I-5 to picket outside Thiebaud's regularly scheduled tennis court reservations. Nobody wants that.
Ultimately, any blue-chip artist could have been chosen for this exhibition and put into the "contemporary artist" category. All any curator had to do was attend a famous art fair, select any five-figure artist at random, and display them in this exhibition. The desired click-bait results would have remained the same. Don't we have enough examples of this curatorial pandering and bootlicking in Northern California with all the "art professionals" at The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art?
As a former visitor to the local UC Davis-Sacramento Art scene, I believe that the second group of selected artists in this exhibition, these so-called "former students," were chosen with the same dull instrument as the first, except for one striking feature.
The second group of artists was chosen because they are devoted sycophants or missionaries from The Cult of Thiebaud. No serious aspirational curator with ambitions beyond Davis, California, would want to associate with this selection of "former students" ever again. Never.
As Thiebaud groupies go, this cult is just as devout and holy as any other cult on a mission from art. To be academically and artistically precise, this group should have been divided again into smaller groups: The Grand Order of The Thiebaud Sycophancy or The Grand Quorum of The Thiebaud Toadies.
This characterization is not flippant. In my experience, these respectable Thiebaud sycophants and toadies deserve praise. For years, I've known many in one capacity or another, professionally or socially. Many were my classmates or thereabouts. A few were even my students. I even wish a few were polygamous.
The members of this group of "former students" have always been aspirational Grand General Officers of the Cult of Thiebaud. Their membership has been commonly acknowledged in our little community from the get-go. Their lifelong dream has now come to life. Hail Thiebaud!
Furthermore, these high-ranking cult members have taken vows to remain devoted Thiebaud idolaters for the rest of their lives. Let's wish them well. As faithful Thiebaud followers go, this group deserves particular praise—not in this celebratory public Art exhibition. After all, their groupie status was only partly their fault. Thiebaud idolatry was never expressly discouraged—which I shall discuss shortly.
Let's be clear: systemic sycophancy is not art but artistic reinvention or art instruction. Instead, student sycophancy leads to artistic annihilation. Heads up: a sycophant's art production is now generally documented in a social media selfie with the object of affection. These ghastly coupled images typically remind an acute observer of Dr. Frankenstein alongside his monster.
My familiarity with these "former students" also extends to the world-renowned artist Bruce Nauman (M.F.A.' 67). Given his age, ambitions, and talent, Nauman was never a Wayne Thiebaud groupie or toady. Thiebaud groupies first appeared long after Nauman left the West Coast.
Incidentally, my stepfather was riding around on horseback with "Bruce The Rancher," as he was called by the local cowboys and hunters in rural New Mexico—even before I suggested to him that he visit Bruce Nauman's ranch. They both lived in the same rural backcountry town.
Nauman briefly evokes the story of their shared cowboy pursuits during the Art21 video excerpt featuring Nauman, now posted on the museum exhibition website. As a result of this uncanny coincidence, I was invited twice to visit Nauman's art studio. Curiously, Nauman mentioned many artists during these extended studio visits that I knew, more or less, including some California artists, but he never mentioned Wayne Thiebaud. This omission makes perfect sense, given that the inept UC Davis Art Studio department administration never mentioned Bruce Nauman the whole time I was around. Go figure?
* * * * *
Another curious throwaway from the Manetti Shrem Museum exhibition literature caught my eye. The website states that Thiebaud was a "profoundly dedicated teacher."
This claim is found everywhere on the Internet. If it is true, it must be true!
Just who will argue with a platitude like a "profoundly dedicated teacher" pasted on the back of a tired old man? Nobody. Today, every teacher is getting a bad rap. Therefore, I suppose the curators felt they didn't need to support this lofty cliché anywhere in the exhibition literature.
Yet, by default, the exhibition puts all the startling visual evidence in plain sight. Every viewer can see what kind of teacher Thiebaud was and the type and quality of students he preferred to produce as a teacher all these years.
I suspect the answer might not be what the curators or museum benefactors had in mind.
In this exhibition, we can see that Thiebaud the Teacher preferred, encouraged, and trained artists who became primarily Thiebaud groupies or sycophants over the years.
Given these results, I'm wholly perplexed as to why this assertion was issued in the exhibition in the first place. Why invite trouble? Perhaps the curators imagine every visitor is ignorant, blind, or a subservient Thiebaud cult member, too?
Do the curators even realize they've inadvertently opened another can of worms? We must also ask ourselves what it means to be a "profoundly dedicated" art teacher today.
Is the formal pronouncement "dedicated teacher" based on Thiebaud's day-to-day, regular appearances in his classroom at UC Davis? I don't think so. Every artist-teacher that I've worked with, without exception, either good or bad, rich or poor, successful or failed, has carried an entire classroom and never missed their regularly scheduled classes.
Does this elevated pronouncement highlight Thiebaud's extensive knowledge or understanding of art? Honestly, I doubt it. For the most part, all of the colleagues I've worked with were as knowledgeable as Thiebaud insofar as they could convey the required course materials—to a greater or lesser degree.
Moreover, Thiebaud's colleagues at UC Davis during its heyday, namely Professors Manuel Neri, David Hollowell, Mike Henderson, William Wiley, Roy DeForrest, and Robert Arneson, were just as knowledgeable about art as Thiebaud. This high standard of visual literacy is why the UC Davis Studio Art program was once so highly regarded.
Is this elevated dedication supposed to highlight Thiebaud's length of service? Well, yes, Thiebaud did teach for quite a long time. Indeed, I have discussed the tragedy of this contemporary phenomenon—"the never-ending artist instructors"—elsewhere (read: "LG Williams Responds To The Forever Art Professors," by Laurie Fendrich, The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 14, 2014).
As anyone might expect, UC Davis's senior leadership members must have regretted seeing the nationally recognized artist-teacher Thiebaud retire. Thiebaud's national celebrity brought much acclaim to the then-failed and fully compromised Art Studio department. But does Thiebaud's overextended service period mean that his close colleague, Professor David Hollowell, who was chosen to teach Art Studio courses alongside Thiebaud, was not a distinguished teacher? Hollowell decided to retire as quickly as possible because the Art Studio was (by that time) a veritable joke.
No, I don't think so.
Let's be frank: this "profoundly dedicated teacher" claim is an unnecessary and purposefully misleading platitude.
With this platitude, the exhibition curators are trying to equate a "profoundly dedicated teacher" with another teacher who "makes paintings that sell for lots of money." These are two entirely different and separate categories. Here, the curators have opportunistically conflated teachers' distinct qualities into one to gaslight Thiebaud, themselves, this exhibition, and the museum.
Still, the crucial point I would like to make here is unrelated to Thiebaud's teaching dedication. Instead, I would like to point out how, in the world, any "dedicated" Art Studio instructor today can be considered a success of any sort when the failure rates of graduates taught by Art Studio professors across the nation are at or near 99.9%.
Only when this dire outcome is finally remedied can art Studio professors claim to be distinguished teachers. Declaring Thiebaud a "profoundly dedicated teacher" is another instance of curatorial and rhetorical flatulence. It's absurd.
Let's retake a look at this platitude from across the academic divide. Just imagine a United States medical school or institution graduating a hundred medical students at the end of a year. OK? Only some graduates could pass the United States Medical Licensing Examination shortly after graduation to practice medicine legally. What action would you expect from the institutional leadership against these faculty members?
Would the professors who taught these ill-prepared medical students or deadly almost doctors be heralded and championed as "distinguished professors" to the general public? Heck no. I don't think so. Instead, shit would hit the fan. The medical school would probably sack all the medical professors from their teaching positions.
This type of responsible leadership appears outside of Art Studio departments nationwide. No, failure artist professors who rubber-stamp untalented art studio graduates become department chairs or "distinguished teachers" or are given some other trumped-up entitlement to put on their university email signatures.
By the way, the only hint at shit wafting around the now fully compromised UC Davis Art Studio department comes from next door—UC Davis's top-tier veterinary school. Go figure?
* * * * *
Our discussion of this exhibition originating from a major teaching university has revealed some subtle, disturbing features. "Contemporary artists" have been randomly chosen to offer art museum visitors and Thiebaud enthusiasts an arbitrary opportunity for art stargazing. "Former students" give visitors a once-in-a-lifetime invitation to gaze upon a pity party for Thiebaud idolaters. Lastly, it confirms that a "distinguished Art Studio teacher" sells paintings to the public at the highest prices while producing sycophants-students in his image, year after year, for decades.
Just what in the heck is the purpose of this important exhibition?
During my stint as a student in Thiebaud's various classrooms, I was so impressed by his lectures that I published a book, Wayne Thiebaud Lectures on Art and Drawing (PCP Press, 2018, ISBN: 198865432). This book is a compilation of the in-class notes I recorded as a Thiebaud student and those collected over the years from other "former students," most notably Kathleen Frumkin.
This volume was compiled over many years under personal duress and at my expense. Given its author's "damaged life," it is not comprehensive. But it is a starting point and a sincere report of part of Thiebaud's distinguished teaching legacy. As such, it is only one personal collection of experiences shared across many of Thiebaud's classrooms. Today, it remains my favorite contribution to the History of Art / Art Studio pedagogy.
My Thiebaud publication discusses many topics, but broadly summarizing, Thiebaud's lessons focused on examining and striving for artistic excellence.
On the other hand, nowhere in this collected volume does Thiebaud advocate for constructing an artistic constellation indiscriminately, without discernment, or from accidental attributes (i.e., gender, age, race, nationality, etc.) and becoming an artistic slave or sycophant to whichever artist you choose.
Unfortunately, these topics do not characterize Thiebaud's legacy and dominate and undermine this 'landmark' exhibition.
If Thiebaud was a "profoundly dedicated teacher" (and he most certainly was), then this curatorially inept selection of "former students"—these groupies or toadies—appear as either a revelation or a charade. This revelation is because Thiebaud's profound and lengthy teaching career created mostly Thiebaud groupies. These poor, spellbound former students could not parse or separate the idol from the messages. It is a charade because this exhibition is not a place for young students or future art historians to estimate Wayne Thiebaud's teaching legacy—aka "[The] New Generation."
* * * * *
In this exhibition, Thiebaud's teaching legacy is misrepresented. How or why did this happen?
It has long been an accepted practice for Chinese artists, who are encouraged to paint in the style of a master or many. Traditional Chinese artistic training was briefly explained to me back in the early 1990s by the legendary artist C.C. Wang (1907–2003), the Chinese-born artist and Art collector based in New York City. Indeed, as he summarized, "copying" one master or another was essential training for every Chinese student. It was considered part of the accepted Chinese artistic training program and indicated profound reverence.
In the West, we have taken an opposite, modernist approach. Modernists don't look back; they prefer to look forward. They don't emulate or imitate; they look for the shock of the new as an indicator of originality. Since becoming hooked on novelty, past practices in the West have been despised and avoided at all costs. Only recently has this bedrock principle been challenged by young artists as a system of oppression.
Over a long teaching career producing painters or visual artists, any unsuspecting influential artist-teacher like Thiebaud can, despite the best of intentions, inadvertently stymie generations of aspiring artists like the "former students" we see here in this exhibition. But these dead souls didn't just arrive at this unfortunate destination on their own accord. No. Not at all. As mentioned earlier, we must remember that they were encouraged to become sycophants.
Every artistic sycophant or toady was once a young, fun-loving undergraduate filled with artistic promise. They did their best with all the skill and imagination they could muster. Similarly, they were encouraged by Art Studio instructors, semester after semester, to enroll in successive Art Studio courses. These students, in turn, continued to do as they were told. All the while, artistic talent rarely appeared for most students.
At some point, instructors must embrace honesty, take these students aside, and tell them to reconsider full-time Art Studio work—that art will likely be a part-time hobby moving forward. There is little harm in this honest acknowledgment. After all, painting as a hobby worked out just fine for Winston Churchill.
Share this insight with students when they are young. They'll bounce back. It is imperative. Not sharing this insight early on can result in a great deal of harm. Just look at today's art market: unaware victims pack it like a tin of sardines.
"Art curators," too, must play a role in this process—now that they've fully weaseled their way into the Art Industrial Complex. Willfully curating misleading "authoritative" exhibitions that appear "legitimate" to unsuspecting students and future artists at major universities only perpetuates and compounds the future's artistic carnage. Curators should stop the spread of marred artistic lives and bad art. "Bad art drives out the good art" is how I formulated it a decade ago (See: LG Williams, "The Gresham-Williams Law," 2011).
This exhibition needs to be more accurate for your current students. They are being led to believe they are now witnessing an exhibition by the most "dedicated" and "famous" painter from UC Davis. When, in fact, what they are experiencing is an art-horror show: a randomly curated charade of suspect superstars and wannabe, insignificant Thiebaud groupies. Just what were these curators thinking? And are these the messages you, too, want to promote as the Dean responsible for the museum, the curators, and the large group of impressionable Art Studio students? I don't think so.
The self-proclaimed "New Generation" exhibition at UC Davis is insufferable on many levels.
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As I've mentioned, one of Modernism's central tenets, originality, was invented and adopted by struggling artists in the late 1800s. The "technique of originality" was an individualistically based artistic stratagem partly created to hedge against the first great wave of highly realistic, mechanically reproduced images ever to appear. In fact, during the 1860s or thereabout, every 2nd and 3rd-rate painter was transitioning over to photography en mass full-time for perfectly sensible reasons: their paintings sucked by comparison.
Henceforth, any artistic devotee subscribing to this technique or theory understood that secondhand cultural mimicry or imitation in the imaginative visual arts must be ruthlessly avoided at all costs—even if it means one's creative death. Thiebaud knows this.
Indeed, I first heard Wallace Stevens's famous lines as a graduate student when Thiebaud read them aloud to our large class: "If it is a world without genius / It is most happily contrived."
As Thiebaud's reputation grew over the decades, he must have noticed that history was discarding his 'former students' works.
How did his students' widespread and consistent rejections by the marketplace affect Thiebaud, the "dedicated teacher?" What was his reaction? Did he try to stop the carnage in the future? What changes did he make to his pedagogy to prevent the next batch of students from piling up again in the garbage bin, too?
Honestly, the thought never crossed Thiebaud's mind.
Over the almost two decades that I frequented the UC Davis campus, Thiebaud's classes appeared to remain the same. And new Thiebaud groupies just kept popping up.
Your average art instructor needs a teaching job to make a modest living. I see no problem here at all. Consequently, these fortunate instructors with Art Studio teaching jobs must keep the conveyor belt of graduates moving through the system from one semester to the next. Otherwise, there will be no future paychecks for anyone. No pay means no rent payment. No rent payment, no house. No house, no…whatever. Welcome to Nomadland.
The lucky few faux artisan teachers who are gainfully employed but didn't make it into the Major Art Leagues, too, can stop the carnage. Every abandoned yet salaried Art Studio professor eventually has one lengthy grace period or opportunity to prevent young Art Studio students from piling up on the garbage bin year after year.
This grace period is called academic tenure.
Tenure allows self-aware, respectable, and obsolete Art Studio professors the dignity and opportunity to finally speak freely and openly about their students' true—statistically overwhelming—future plight without reprisal or retaliation. All the while, their regular paychecks can keep rolling into their bank and retirement accounts.
More importantly, doesn't it make sense for a tenured and empathetic Art Studio instructor to try to prevent all underperforming students from a disappointing life in art after graduation as early as possible?
The commercially successful artist-teacher Wayne Thiebaud, though, had tenure and more. A quick search of Thiebaud's art sales on the Artnet Auction Results website lists 580 artworks sold from the 1960s, 668 sold from the 1970s, 454 sold from the 1980s, etc. Even though auction sales do not reflect direct payments to respective artists, they can indicate if an artist has a significant patron and collector base.
Thiebaud's popular success plus academic tenure would have certainly insulated him from administrative reprisals or retaliation if he had suddenly decided to change course to prevent sycophants from spreading throughout his classrooms semester after semester.
Yet Thiebaud remained silent and said nothing, and his paintings' prices increased steadily.
Sure, Thiebaud presumably encouraged his son Paul Thiebaud to occasionally allow one or two groupies to exhibit at The Paul Thiebaud Gallery in San Francisco for the sheer hell of it. This nod was a sweet but gratuitous gesture given the vast number of members in the Thiebaud cult. No other significant galleries were interested in supporting or selling the Thiebaud knockoff wares made by "former students."
Was Thiebaud just not "paying attention"—to use Bruce Nauman's phrase from Art21?
Why didn't Thiebaud speak up loudly about this disturbing situation? After all, he had the career security and platform. People would have listened to Thiebaud.
It is easy to overlook the elder Thiebaud's complicity. Sure, what can he do now? But what about the mature Thiebaud when he was at the height of his powers?
If he was as generous, kind, and concerned for his students as the widespread reports suggest —qualities most other instructors share, too—why didn't Thiebaud protect his students from this sad fate? Perhaps this is just his Achilles' heel.
As a distinguished teacher, how could Thiebaud remain silent about the poor reception of his students' work throughout his career? How could this exhibition promote clickbait and sycophants as the "New Generation" to the next generation? It's a sad spectacle to behold.
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The paradox becomes more confounding and problematic when considering that his tolerance and preference for groupies contradict Thiebaud's artistic journey. Indeed, Thiebaud's harrowing and courageous artistic journey from failure to success was based on honest acknowledgment and awareness of his present reality, precisely his early artistic shortcomings.
Thiebaud undertook a radical reconceptualization of his entire artistic practice in a last-ditch effort to change his dire artistic situation c.1960. One likes to imagine Bill DeKooning sitting Thiebaud down at the Cedar Bar to give him a straight-talking to late one night. Thiebaud needed to have what it took to be an Abstract Expressionist. However, this problematic acknowledgment forced Thiebaud to undertake risky adventures that broke new artistic terrain. Shortly afterward, these artistic experiments captivated New York art gallerist Alan Stone (1932-2006) and, eventually, the art world.
Luckily for Thiebaud and us, everything worked out just fine. Most contemporary artists or painters, though, are not so lucky.
Pursuing art is a ruthless pursuit. There is no consolation prize. Beautiful dead bodies never cease to pile high upon the Tower of Art. Thiebaud once remarked, "Failure is one's constant companion when pursuing art." I know this story well, too. Maybe that's why Thiebaud is as risk-averse as Jasper Johns—the most risk-averse contemporary living artist today, according to Lawrence Weiner.
Did these painful memories prevent Thiebaud from speaking candidly and honestly to his students? His inexplicable acceptance of groupies year after year only guaranteed that his "former students" would remain in a permanent state of artistic retardation. Then again, perhaps Thiebaud assumed that they would soon find out that they were on the wrong path, and they would need to make radical re-adjustments in their current poor-performing art practice to achieve their artistic success—as he had once done. In other words, they must discover that genuine artistic self-understanding under delusional conditions is unspannable.
Thiebaud's "former students" haven't found this out for themselves. They remained groupies.
Thiebaud indeed received his share of rough treatment from other artists. Most likely, his gentle nature preferred to forget these troubling experiences—or at least overlook them. Who wants to revisit trying times again and again? One suspects these groupies experienced the same ridicule and condescension as young Thiebaud had experienced, especially from their fellow students pursuing art while trying to make individual original, artistic contributions. When I was on campus, I overheard many such complaints.
Furthermore, I heard many humiliating accounts of Thiebaud's treatment between the 1950s and 1960s when he shifted his attention from commercial to fine art. Many reports came directly from the legendary, maverick California artist and former UC Davis Art Studio lecturer Wally Hedrick. Art critic Bill Berkson (1939—2016) said Hedrick was "at the unofficial center of the small San Francisco art world between 1955–65."
Wally Hedrick told me Thiebaud's art during this period was widely despised by the most popular and critically acclaimed artists in the small artistic community in Northern California. According to Hedrick, even mentioning the name "Thiebaud" during this time brought any conversation to sudden howls, laughter, and ridicule. Overhearing these responses must have been a miserable experience for Thiebaud.
"I never went to art school," Thiebaud loves to repeat. This alibi is Thiebaud's candid acknowledgment and disclaimer—for everything.
Thiebaud offers this trigger warning immediately so as not to disappoint—anybody. As a result, this mantra incessantly disarms and deflects all criticism. He especially likes to share this disclaimer with those artists, historians, or critics urging him to paint the "next generation" artistic invention. Maybe 60+ years of making risk-averse art (i.e., painting the same subjects, with the same consistent and pat nuances with the occasional subject matter shift) has become too tiresome, familiar, and stale in times filled with constant streams of innovative contemporary artistic practices.
Despite all the applause from the auction houses, the last three or four decades have seen Thiebaud's artistic practice fall into a repetitive, rote, performative painting trap. Thiebaud Inc. has pushed the limits and patience of many keen admirers. Given the product's sheer predictability, it is time to repurpose his painting studio as a branch of the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
"I never went to art school" can be translated by someone who attended art school to someone unfamiliar with art school as "I have nothing more" or "There will be nothing more." This confession is understandable, considering that no one would want Thiebaud to revisit his terrible years from the 50s and '60s again. No. Not that again.
My experience at the Kansas City Art Institute was nasty, brutish, and too short. Art school is no place for snowflakes. At the time, every art school student understood and abided by the same unwritten code 24-7: it was art against art. There was no B.S., no hiding place, and no stupid art curators or collectors. Artists in art schools controlled the local macro and microenvironments—i.e., artistic reputations, hierarchy, and renown. When lame art instructors or administrators occasionally entered the art scene, they predictably fucked things up. In brief, art school is fantastic.
I know what Thiebaud missed, and so does Thiebaud. Art school gives one the awareness, confidence, and ability for conscious liberation—to be transformed and manifested almost instantaneously from death-dealing beliefs.
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Having grown up admiring and educated by cartoon panels, Thiebaud had the self-respect, self-awareness, and honest conviction never to claim to be an "artist." This, too, is another self-effacing alibi. Great artists are, after all, a rare and different breed—marvels to behold. To be an artist means embracing culture, ideas, awareness, and experience. Instead, Thiebaud considered himself a painter.
In this regard, a painter paints. Painting, for Thiebaud, meant a practical, matter-of-fact activity, getting a fair rate of return for representations that remain within the lines. You'll never see Thiebaud straying far beyond his principal representational premise—paint hitting the surface while informing an object. Thiebaud Inc. has been handsomely rewarded for this dedicated service.
Thiebaud is a twice-born successful painter. These are painters who've endured early traumatic criticisms to go on to achieve success. Twice-born painters who live far from the major art centers generally become permanently fixated on their achievement once it arrives. For instance, Grant Wood (1891-1942) and Wayne Thiebaud share this in common.
It follows, therefore, that for 30+ years, Thiebaud continued teaching first-year or introductory students just how to paint. In his case, though, it remained: how to paint as Thiebaud, day after day, class after class, and semester after semester. Never mind that it is no longer 1960, 1970, 1980, or even 1990; they are not little Wayne Thiebauds, and there isn't any potential market for thousands of extra Thiebaudesque artists anywhere in the world.
As a multi-institutional and transient Nomadland lecturer, I preferred teaching art and art appreciation to first-year or introductory students. But for very different reasons. Given my low pay (averaging just $3000 for 250 students per class per quarter), teaching in "Beginning" or "Introductory" environments solved the moral and ethical obligation of preventing advanced Art Studio students from an almost certain future as artistic failures. Right?
Honestly, I never could understand why marketless but self-respecting "Art Studio professors" would insist on teaching advanced students just moments before they graduate into the real world with few job skills or prospects. This egregious request by senior Art Studio professors demanding to teach "Advanced" courses makes the failed artist-academic's inflated ego appear at its most ridiculous, delusional, and dangerous. Why assume this responsibility and guilt when you're an artist-failure, and it's wholly unnecessary? This imperative evokes the perverse "Stockholm Syndrome," wouldn't you say?
I would suspect that Thiebaud's kind nature, national stature, and lengthy teaching service have led to more devoted student followers or groupies than any other painting instructor nationwide. He knew how to put on a show for his students: The How To Make A Thiebaud Show. His staged performances were quite a sight—an academic administrator's and a recruiter's dream come true. Thiebaud knew how to rule the center court and dominate the baseline.
After watching his classroom performances, one would be hard-pressed to find just one naïve art student who does not wish to become a lifelong, transfixed Thiebaud devotee—watching a chocolate doughnut appear from nowhere in just minutes. Doughnut! And it's precisely this mimicry that assumes the dominant takeaway from this exhibition—Thiebaud's "former students" generally ended up painting like him explicitly or implicitly.
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Aside from promoting art stars, Thiebaud groupies, and fake distinguished teachers, this exhibition didn't deliver on two other assertions: evidence of a great art "influencer" or the appearance of an artist who took Thiebaud's legacy and "forecasted the future of painting" just as he has done.
True, there is plenty of "just as he had done" in this exhibition. Way too much. On the other hand, there is not one shred of evidence for either an "influencer" or "the future of art."
Given the absence of a bona fide "influencer" or glance into "the future of art," I would like to present real-life examples of both.
I'd like to propose that an art "influencer" is someone who (1) painted an American flag three years before Jasper Johns; (2) became the very face of "The San Francisco North Beach Beatnik Scene," which lured tens of thousands of cultural tourists from all over the country to (3-5) visit, see, and experience a brand new (6-8) alternative artistic reality, art form, and lifestyle; (9) created the modest clandestine institution; (10) held a landmark event, attended by 250 people, that instantly announced (11) "The San Francisco Literary Renaissance" which, in turn, (12) launched the international movement and (13-15) careers of Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and Michael McClure et al—and which eventually (16) put publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti in a U.S. superior court on obscenity charges, wherein (17) nine literary experts testified on one book's behalf to decide its "redeeming social importance"; (18) established the house (live/work) which became the unofficial epicenter of the small but influential Northern California art world between '55 and '62; (19) supported artists; (20) bought eight years' worth of materials for one artist so she could make a masterwork that stands over 10 and a half feet high and weighs more than one ton—which the Whitney Museum of American Art eventually conserved and acquired for its permanent collection; (21-30) mentored the creative and intellectual accents of real students and artists like Jerry Garcia, William Wiley, Mike Henderson, Robert Arneson, William Allen, Robert Hudson, Roy DeForest, Ruby Neri—not to mention today's greatest living artist, Paul McCarthy; and (31) made many of the first artistic masterpieces against America's illegal wars across the globe which motivated (32) hundreds of students from the San Francisco Art Institute to take-to-the-streets in protest. This action resulted in the artist's immediate dismissal (firing) from the SFAI—leading to hundreds if not thousands of students unable to attend "influential" art lectures forever.
I imagine this is what a real "art influencer's" influence is supposed to look like. Remarkably, these influences and many more belong to one man—Wally Hedrick (1928-2003).
Hedrick's art "influence" doesn't stop there.
Early in his career, Hedrick was keenly aware of the unruly powers of influence and influence-peddling in art and upon one's artistic practice. These encroaching foreign forces were beginning to overwhelm art. Like others during the postwar counter-cultural art scene, Hedrick was repelled by these forces. His repulsion never diminished.
For example, Hedrick was particularly interested in preventing the rise of money and the media's growing dominant influence in art. Specifically, money's negative impact was three-fold: it confused and distorted actual accomplishments, lured artists into exchanging artistic freedom for artistic slavery (i.e., turning oneself into a commodity bought and sold), and created artist-celebrities out of the blue for their purposes.
Hedrick took up arms against what he saw as this sea of troubling influences and actively sought to oppose them head-on. As a direct assault upon "influence," Hedrick decided, in his unique way, to turn it on its head—and by doing so, bring it under control or end it.
Hedrick's artistic productions varied considerably in content and form, much like those of Marcel Duchamp—an artist Hedrick greatly admired. Hedrick created paintings, drawings, prints, psychedelic light art, mechanical kinetic sculpture, junk/assemblage sculpture, pop art, (California) funk art, happenings, conceptual art, bad painting, Neo-Expressionism, and image appropriation.
This dynamic flexibility was a conscious strategy. This art-making approach allowed Hedrick to engage his expansive artistic imagination fully. Simultaneously, the radical shifts in his creative output, one diverging from the next, disengaged his work from the standardized impulse that the local, national, and international markets required (i.e., repetition, serialization, etc.). This stratagem protected his artistic soul.
Hedrick also used an ancient removal stratagem, Damnatio Memoriae, to exclude or erase himself and his cultural productions from the art world he came to despise. This "un-influencing" had rarely, if ever, appeared on the American art landscape—certainly never on the scale that Hedrick devised.
Perhaps taking a page from the more recent political purges of the Soviet Union, which employed visual censorship in political contexts to vanquish, cancel, or erase real or imagined enemies in photographs and films, Hedrick turned these devices upon…himself.
Hedrick made artworks that destroyed themselves years before Tingley. He painted dozens of historic, iconic black paintings and killed many other artworks outright. Frequently, he criticized the art establishment. He repeatedly refused to enter his tiny studio (if you could call it that?) to make art. After all this, he finally exited the art world penniless and drifted to Nomadland.
Most famously, Hedrick refused to fly to New York City to attend The Museum of Modern Art's "Sixteen Americans" exhibition opening on December 16, 1959. Organized by Dorothy C. Miller, this remarkably curated show launched the careers of so many artists we know today: Jasper Johns, Jay DeFeo, Ellsworth Kelly, Alfred Leslie, Louise Nevelson, Robert Rauschenberg, and Frank Stella, among others.
Only a confident and committed artist who also had a complete disregard for commercial success would suddenly pivot their rising career trajectory or influence and reverse its course back in the opposite direction.
But Hedrick did precisely that.
Additionally, Hedrick was publicly "uninfluenced" or "uninvited" by others. As a direct result of his artistic courage and commitment, he was prevented from participating in many significant group exhibitions. Many of these exhibitions were organized around artistic movements that he played a central role in creating, promoting, and advancing.
Instances of this sort of retribution, public shaming, and cancellation at the hands of others include The Art of Assemblage, October 4 - November 12, 1961, at The Museum of Modern Art and curated by William Seitz; and Funk, April 18—May 29, 1967, at the University Art Museum at the University of California, Berkeley, and curated by Peter Selz.
These public shunnings or cancellations were blatant, personal assaults upon Hedrick's career to browbeat the artist into toeing the line just like the others. These attempts failed. But the painful memories of these shameful actions were still fresh in many minds decades afterward by the guilt-ridden curators.
"I regret making this wrong decision," Selz confessed to me and another witness in 2012 at a birthday party for distinguished UC Berkeley Professor George Lakoff.
All these documented instances should compel art curators and historians to regard Wally Hedrick as an infamous O.G. "influencer" and "un-influencer" simultaneously. Hedrick's "un-influencing" or "self-cancellation" was another stroke of his artistic genius. He's probably still tickled pink.
In the end, Hedrick's artistic convictions led to his tragic early death at the hands of deprivation and poverty. His passing was largely forgotten by the new upstart doyens living in the San Francisco art world in the early 2000s—the art world he helped usher in and create.
The lasting effects of Hedrick's artistic courage, "un-influencing," or "self-cancellation," are significant: Hedrick is all but gone from today's art world. This absence is maddening and incalculable. We are artistically and imaginatively defeated. I get sick to my stomach every time I think about it.
We must now esteem and revere what remains from Hedrick's failed attempt: fully compromised artists are powerfully promoted and backed by uncontested forces fueled by impunity alone. These highly ambitious, resourceful, and calculating artists and institutions have aspirations, values, and objectives Hedrick abhorred. We need a greater understanding of ourselves and the unimpeded potential of art, past and present. We lack an essential visual artist who is more vital than influence, money, and celebrity.
One can only imagine Hedrick's fits of laughter if he learned of the widespread, go-to strategies that feckless Art Studio professors across the nation now use to inflate the renown of their mediocrity—for example, getting friendly art collectors to "gift" artworks for inflated tax write-offs to compromised museum officials—at The Metropolitan Museum of Art or The Museum of Modern Art. Bottom-feeding artists can mislead and deceive any unaware administrator's line-by-line scrutiny with such fraudulent art-ammo-antics. This sort of racketeering becomes the justification for all kinds of shit.
"I kind of bullied people to do things because I had a good resume," is how art critic Dave Hickey put it.
Still, we can thank Hedrick for NOT giving us what we live with today. The art world's rulers don't have an unassailable authority pointing out their corrupt agendas and practices. Famous artists don't have an art authority constantly calling them out as "collabos." And Hedrick isn't part of a corrupt art world filled with deplorable "artistes" that he despised. In the end, this all worked out fine for all parties.
Fortunately, one internationally recognized wunderkind artist single-handedly deserves our great thanks and appreciation for protecting Hedrick's remarkable legacy: the internationally recognized Los Angeles artist Paul McCarthy.
According to the New York Times, McCarthy "has spent his career cultivating a visual language of depravity and scathing critique." His legendary video, Painter (1995), depicts McCarthy makeup-faced and costumed, performing bits to the shock and horror of audiences as a pigment-splattering clown-painter or painting-fool (i.e., Willem DeKooning). The 50-minute video concludes with a scene where art collectors line up to see Painter-Clown-McCarthy's bare bottom as if assessing it as an artwork. This definitive contemporary artwork portrays painters as clowns—another important historical art fact that has escaped the aged Thiebaud and his highly motivated sales force.
McCarthy attended the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) from 1968–1969 when Hedrick was on the SFAI Art Studio faculty. McCarthy quickly understood and admired Hedrick's radical and vital importance. McCarthy's subsequent renown gave him the resources and power to act upon the global art stage to champion Hedrick's legacy and try to make things right.
McCarthy appreciates Hedrick's "influence" and has purchased over a dozen significant works by the artist. This generosity serves both as a blessing and a dismissal. His purchases include the legendary Flag (1953) and the epic War Room (c.1967). War Room was recently exhibited in a major survey, "Artists Respond: American Art and the Vietnam War, 1965-1975", at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. By the way, I was fortunate to exhibit War Room at The San Francisco International Art Fair in 2002, after the artwork was lying exposed to the elements in a sheep barn in Bodega, California, for 30 years (See: Envisioning The Dark Millennium: Wally Hedrick's Black Paintings: 1953 - 2003, PCP Press, 2016, ISBN: 1530215048).
Paul McCarthy, America's greatest living artist, also happens to be America's top art historian—just as Picasso was in his day. In this role, he is on a mission to recover many lost and overlooked art histories. There could be no more extraordinary proof that Hedrick was an "influencer" than this lone endorsement.
McCarthy's unprecedented generosity and visionary understanding ensure that Hedrick's expansive artistry and imagination will continue to influence culture long after misguided exhibitions like the one we are discussing fade from our memory.
In the late 90s, Hedrick was in poor health and needed a teaching job to support himself. I urged the UC Davis Art Studio department to rehire Hedrick as a part-time lecturer. Unfortunately, no one in the Art Studio department, including Wayne Thiebaud, took action to support Hedrick.
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Lastly, what would an actual "artist working under Thiebaud's influence today and forecasting the future of art" presumably look like?
One former Thiebaud student, an artist now residing in Nomadland, has been tirelessly examining this question and the concerns I have raised for years. This artist explored this specific thesis long before this exhibition was ever imagined.
Spending six years researching, planning, and executing two monumental artworks, this artist reconfigured Thiebaud's canonical compositions of Sacramento Valley landscapes, San Francisco cityscapes, and assorted goods. Next, the artist took this synthesis to its logical conclusion or endgame. The result depicts a future wasteland—beyond the tipping point of climate change, biodiversity loss, and socio-economic collapse—a future Thiebaud would have been repelled by.
These two artworks give us a glimpse into a future art that Thiebaud could never imagine: Logos crumbling.
These contemporary representations, overlooked for display by the exhibition curators, offer a profound examination of our origins and artistic future. Namely, the dark end-times of the last remaining, partially functional buildings populated by sequestered succubi and incubi, shadows of sentient beings, assorted Frankenstein monsters, vampires, cocksuckers, bootlickers, gold diggers, fucking assholes, etc.—essentially, all the characters and themes that we have discussed here and many more.
Black is the dominant theme in these images, underscoring a textual reading aligned with Michelangelo's supremacy of form, historical context, and cultural domination. The rejection of Thiebaud-White, the mourning of Hedrick-Black, and our histories of wars and destruction are all layered upon America's dark Antebellum history. Most importantly, the looming dominance of the Far East and its ink brush painting tradition, often dismissed by post-modern Western artists, is highlighted.
These two artworks were also expressly conceived as private tributes and expressions of gratitude. They provide physical memorials to Wally Hedrick and David Hollowell's outstanding artistic accomplishments and courage—while also giving a significant nod to Stephen Kaltenbach's Portrait of My Father (1972–79)—which has coincidentally been on view at the Manetti Shrem Museum.
These masterpieces are too detailed to be captured accurately in photographs and must be seen in person. They can only be considered appropriately face-to-face.
As some consolation, I am happy to report that the first museum director to see these monumental artworks displayed triumphantly and center-stage in The Laguna Art Museum—next to a Wayne Thiebaud painting.
Anyway, this is what a true representative of Thiebaud's important teaching and artistic legacy can bring to the future of art. Please get in touch with your university's museum benefactors as soon as possible and purchase one of these unprecedented works for your museum. I'd be happy to share the contact information with their purchasing agent.
Thank you for taking the time to read my message. I hope I have convinced you to regard this public art exhibition under your leadership with a newfound disdain and dread.
And good luck with your continued academic and administrative pursuits in the future.
LG Williams |
