Wayne Thiebaud Auction Prices and Value Guide

Wayne Thiebaud auction prices are tracked in Appraisily's artist market index, with source-directory coverage of 1,957 records. Use this page to review sold-lot activity, market context, and valuation factors before requesting a formal appraisal.

Wayne Thiebaud auction prices: quick answer

Wayne Thiebaud auction prices depend on medium, size, date, condition, provenance, edition details, attribution confidence, and recent comparable auction sales.

Artist
Wayne Thiebaud
Source records
1,957
Market update
2026-02-16

Artist context

About Wayne Thiebaud

Wayne Thiebaud (1920–2021) was an American painter celebrated for luminous still-life paintings of everyday objects—cakes, pies, pastries, ice cream cones, hot dogs, lipsticks, and paint cans—rendered in thick impasto pigment with exaggerated color and crisp,广告-like shadows. Born in Mesa, Arizona, he earned degrees from San Jose State College and Sacramento State College before embarking on a long teaching career. Although grouped with Pop Art for his focus on mass-culture imagery, Thiebaud began his signature food paintings in the late 1950s, slightly before the classic Pop movement coalesced, and his work retains a distinctively painterly, sensuous quality. Beyond still lifes, he produced acclaimed San Francisco cityscapes, Sacramento Valley landscapes, and figure paintings. His work is held by major institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, the Tate, and the Smithsonian.

Pop Artoil paintingprintmakingdrawingstill life (pies, cakes, pastries, confections)consumer goods (lipsticks, paint cans, ice cream cones, hot dogs)landscapesfigure paintings

Common works and media

Thiebaud's auction and appraisal record includes oil paintings on canvas and board, pastel and charcoal drawings, watercolors, and an extensive body of prints (etchings, lithographs, screenprints, and woodcuts). Recurring subjects include single and stacked cakes, rows of pies, rows of lipsticks, paint cans, ice cream cones, deli counters, gumball machines, San Francisco street scenes, aerial river-delta landscapes, and seated or standing female figures. Editioned prints and multiples are common at auction and provide an accessible entry point for collectors.

Market and appraisal context

Wayne Thiebaud commands a deep, liquid secondary market with 1,204 auction lots tracked by Appraisily (943 with recorded prices), spanning from December 2000 through April 2026. Price dispersion is extremely wide—from $6 for minor ephemera to $11.3 million for major paintings—reflecting the broad range of media and significance across his output. The interquartile spread ($5,040–$98,500) shows that mid-tier works (prints, drawings, smaller paintings) trade actively, while museum-quality oil paintings from his signature 1960s confectionery period regularly achieve seven figures. Fifty-eight lots appeared in the most recent 12 months (down from 84 the prior year), suggesting a modest contraction in volume but continued strong institutional and collector demand. Top-tier houses dominate the high end: Christie's alone accounted for five of the highest recent prices, including Timballi di Riso (oil on canvas, $1.397M, Nov 2025), Night Village (acrylic on canvas, $1.143M, Nov 2025), and Dispenser and Sugar (oil on canvas, $1.08M, Nov 2025). Works on paper also carry strong premiums—Mickey Mouse Cake (pastel, Christie's, $444,500) and Knife (charcoal, Christie's, $152,400) demonstrate that even non-oil media achieve six figures when subject, period, and provenance align.

Auction categories and appraisal factors

Common auction categories

  • Post-War and Contemporary Art
  • American Art
  • Prints and Multiples
  • Works on Paper
  • Drawings

Value drivers

  1. [object Object]

Appraisal caveats

  • With nearly 2,000 auction lots recorded, Thiebaud is well-represented at auction across a wide range of media, dates, and price tiers.
  • Market value varies significantly between original paintings and graphic works; prints and multiples trade at substantially lower levels.
  • The source pack does not include specific realized prices or auction-house records; appraisal should reference current comparable sale data.
  • The Appraisily auction-record dataset includes 1,204 lots but only 943 have recorded prices; approximately 22% of lots lack realized-price data, which may underrepresent the full breadth of trading activity.

Evidence

Sources for artist context

This source-grounded artist context passed Appraisily's promotion threshold: high confidence, strong sources.

Source-grounded artist Markdown

Data basis

This page is built from Appraisily's public auction market index. Private transactions, incomplete sale feeds, and attribution changes may not be fully represented.

LLM-readable Markdown summary for Wayne Thiebaud

LLM summary index · LLM full index

Artist value FAQ

How much is Wayne Thiebaud worth?

Comparable public auction sales are the best starting point, but final value depends on the specific artwork, condition, size, medium, provenance, and attribution confidence.

Can Appraisily value my Wayne Thiebaud artwork?

Yes. Appraisily can review photos, dimensions, signatures, condition, provenance, and comparable market data to prepare a current valuation.