Fish Circle

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Fish Circle (1975)

"Fish Circle" (1975) is an oil painting by Wayne Thiebaud that was acquired by the Birmingham Museum of Art in 1978.

Thiebaud (19202021) grew up in a Mormon family in Southern California, and apprenticed in high school at Walt Disney Studios. He went on to work as a cartoonist and artist in New York City, and served as an artist in the 1st Motion Picture Unit of the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II. He completed bachelor's and master's degrees in art at Sacramento State College in 1951 and 1952. He continued on as an art teacher, and spent most of his career, from 1960 to 1991, on the faculty of the University of California, Davis.

In his art, Thiebaud was influenced by contemporary abstract painting, but maintained an interest in the forms of common objects rendered in thick layers of paint with exaggerated colors and hard-edged shadows. His work is generally included with "pop art", but tended to be more figurative than most examples of the genre. He disliked such appellations, preferring to just call himself as an "old-fashioned painter". Thiebaud's career flourished from 1960 onwards with Allan Stone as his exclusive dealer.

The 16 1/4" tall by 20" wide "Fish Circle", depicting an arrangement of whole fish with lemon halves, was sold to the museum by Allan Stone Gallery of New York. Funds for the purchase came from the National Endowment for the Arts and from the Birmingham Art Association, whose gift was made in memory of Joseph and Virginia Simpson, who had both died in 1977.

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