I went to the Legion of Honor museum in San Francisco today! This beautiful museum is 101 years old and was featured in the 1958 Hitchcock film Vertigo. Its formal name is the California Palace of the Legion of Honor.
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Anyway, my friend Susie is a member there and she invited me and her friend Beth to see to the Wayne Thiebaud exhibit at the museum today.
I love art but I wasn’t familiar with Thiebaud before today. He’s a very unusual artist whose career spanned over six decades. He was a professor at Sacramento City College and the University of California, Davis. When I look him up, he’s identified with the Pop Art movement because of paintings like these:
But Thiebaud used widely different subjects and styles.
Everyone has influences, of course, but most artists I know are highly individualistic, either consciously or unconsciously. Part of their gift is that they are uniquely original. Thiebaud called himself an “art thief” and talked a lot about “stealing” from other artists. He even explicitly named the artists and works he was copying.
The museum put a small picture of the art that inspired Thiebaud next to each painting. To my eye, they didn’t resemble each other. He had his own style but Thiebaud himself said, “I don’t feel myself being particularly original. I love the idea of being in the tradition of bravura painting, starting with maybe Velázquez and coming down all the way to Manet through hundreds of wonderful bravura painters. So that certainly can’t be counted as original. Who’s to say about originality?”
I think the name of this piece was Dark City.
The other interesting thing about Thiebaud is that he didn’t move through phases in his art. You know Picasso had his blue period, then he went to his rose period, and eventually to cubism. Thiebaud would return to his themes over and over. For instance, he’s famous for his cakes. He painted cakes in the 1960s, then he would return to it in the 1980s or 2000s. He would also go back and adjust paintings he’d finished many years earlier.
I love art, but I love words more. Thiebaud has a magnificent quote:
My friend Charlene once told me you can always tell where you are in the city by finding the Sutro Tower. There’s some fog in this picture from the museum’s lawn, but it’s there!
old spirituals 
Like you, Kimberly, I never heard of Thiebaud. Thiebaud’s approach to his art, in my opinion, probably made him a very good art professor/teacher. Like Thiebaud, I have dabbled in many forms of art: photography, woodworking, yard art, and even industrial and interior design.
I once created and drew a character to represent the menu of a cul-de-sac sponsored outdoor party. My wife and I were one of three couples that sponsored and decided the menu for the party. I pitched a name to the others for the party based on the menu: SHRIMP, CORN ON THE COB, OYSTERS AND BEER. (How we decided that menu is foggy since we did it over dinner and drinks at a restaurant.) The group accepted my recommendation to name it a SCOB PARTY, obviously an acronym. We advertised it to the neighborhood as “The First Annual SCOB Party.” (Later realizing that calling it the First Annual was a huge mistake. Plus, the name peaked interest and curiosity so people wanted to attend.)
Even splitting the cost of the party among 3 couples, it was more than we anticipated. One unanticipated cost was having to quickly buy another keg of beer in the later part of the party, bring the total to 3 kegs. We decided the next day when reviewing the bills not to have “The Second Annual SCOB Party.” The neighbors for a very long time talked about the great time and asked when we were going to have The Second Annual SCOB Party.”
Oh, the foolish things we do in our life. But, heck, you only go through once.
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That’s so fun! Do you have a picture of the character you can post? I would love to see that!
My neighbors never hold SCOB parties, I feel cheated! That sounds so fun…
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I’ll search my photo albums. There is a chance I kept some pictures. It was a long time ago. By the way, one of the couples have been our best friends for many years and, after we both relocated several times, we are neighbors again. At the time of the SCOB Party we lived in Metro Atlanta.
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That’s pretty cool. I sure wish I lived closer to my old friends
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that sounds delicious!
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Both times I went to the Legion of Honor, it was closed! I’ve just had to enjoy the Hitchcock movie. Thiebaud is so correct as to what is genuinely original. All artists get their inspiration from what has gone before. I love his work, especially Dark City. Reminds me of Hitchcock’s Rear Window, my favorite movie.
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Maybe sometime you’ll get to visit the Legion of Honor. It’s such a beautiful building. I’ve never seen Rear Window, but I like the Dark City painting and as far as I know, Hitchcock can do no wrong 🙂
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You would like Rear Window.
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I’ll definitely check it out!
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