Wayne Thiebaud is among the most important contemporary American artists. Thiebaud is a recipient of the National Medal of Arts among other major honors including numerous honorary doctorates. In addition to being a respected educator, he has extended the long tradition of American realism while making a substantial contribution to the serious critical discourse pertaining to contemporary art.

Born in Mesa, Arizona in 1920, Thiebaud began his career as a commercial artist and cartoonist. During the 1960s, his deadpan paintings of food and household goods associated him most closely with the Pop Art movement, although he approached his subjects with a reverence and nostalgia unlike the more satirical work of other Pop Artists. Since then, other favored themes have included large-scale isolated figures, San Francisco cityscapes with steep plunges that geometrically restructure space and perspective, and landscapes inspired by regions around the Bay Area and the Sierra foothills.