A new exhibit at the Brandywine River Museum of Art celebrates the work of Wayne Thiebaud, who died on Christmas Day at the age of 101. While many of the pieces in the new BRM exhibit feature cakes, pastries, and other sweet treats and might bring to mind Andy Warhol’s painting of a soup can, Thiebaud’s art goes far beyond that.

Thiebaud, (pronounced TEE-boh) painted almost into his 100^th year. Several of his pieces have a 1960s pop art feel in both color and tone. Other pieces include landscapes, cityscapes, and portraits, with and without that pop art feel. One of the portraits without that feel reflects Thiebaud’s longtime life in California. It’s a portrait of the high-pitched, squeaky voice comic actor Sterling Holloway.

Museum Director Tom Padon referred to Thiebaud as an “influential teacher” with a “singular style.” Of the portraits, Padon said: “[T]he artist isolates his subjects in blank settings almost like natural history specimens.”

That isolation Padon refers to may best be reflected in Thiebaud’s 1968-piece, Swimsuit Figures. That sense is also reflected in his Two Seated Figures and a few others.

Audrey Lewis is the curator for the Thiebaud exhibit and she frequently used the word “luscious” to describe the richness of the work, specifically of the food images. And she, too, recognizes the similarities of some of Thiebaud's food pieces with Warhol’s famous Campbell Soup can painting.

She said they were working on the same concept at the same time, but from different perspectives and from different places. Thiebaud was in California while Warhol was in New York.

“They’re like parallel, Warhol and Thiebaud. They came at the similar idea simultaneously,” she explained, saying the artists were “looking for something beyond abstract expressionism. There was a return to figures, there was a return to objects.” She added that the year 1962 was the year when pop art came into vogue.

“There was an exhibition held in California called ‘New Painting of Common Objects.’ That’s what started the pop art movement in terms of getting acclaim and critical attention,” Lewis said.

She went on to say that Thiebaud did not consider himself a pop artist “because he thought his work had a different intent.”

While Thiebaud and Warhol had similar interests, the contemporary, everyday object, the stuff you see on TV and in diners, their approach was different. Thiebaud’s work “is really luscious, luscious painting. It’s meant to mimic the subject he’s portraying.”

As an example, Lewis said, Thiebaud whipped his pigments to mimic the whipped texture of his Boston Creams. Warhol was doing the opposite, “removing the evidence of the artist.”