Painter-beach bum Wayne Thiebaud draws from oceans of inspiration

A true Southern California painter, Wayne Thiebaud grew up amid the sand and surf culture of Long Beach. As a child, he sold newspapers and hot dogs along the city’s waterfront Pike. As a teenager, he worked as a lifeguard and even joined the Sea Scouts, a youth group devoted to boating and other water activities.

The artist’s halcyon seaside memories play a key role in the new show “Wayne Thiebaud: 70 Years of Painting,” opening Sunday at the Laguna Art Museum. “The beach is photographed so often that I wanted to do something that hadn’t been done,” says the artist. In “Beach Boys” (1959), the artist portrays two children at play in the sand in a quasi-abstract manner inspired by Willem de Kooning and Spanish artist Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida.

Thiebaud’s obsession with the shore may come as a surprise to those who know him mainly for his candy-colored, pop-inflected paintings of pastry shops and city streets.

The show, which features close to 90 works, includes Thiebaud’s most recent paintings, some of which were finished as recently as last year. Thiebaud, 86, now divides his time between Laguna Beach and Northern California.

“If you simply record what you’re seeing, you’re not including your own series of influences,” he says. “I’m like a flaneur now. I like to go around the beach watching people. My favorite spot is where the tide is coming in, the transition point where you’re in between water and land.”

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‘WAYNE THIEBAUD: 70 YEARS OF PAINTING’

WHERE: Laguna Art Museum, 307 Cliff Drive, Laguna Beach

WHEN: Sunday to Jan. 27

PRICE: $10; 12 and younger, free

INFO: (949) 494-8971, www.lagunaartmuseum.org