After giving the second Betty Jean and Wayne Thiebaud Endowed Lecture on March 10, 2016, Peter Schjeldahl, art critic for The New Yorker, spent the following afternoon discussing art with students at a special MFA Open Studios event. At the event, guests had the opportunity to view the MFA projects and interact with the students, art faculty, staff and Schjeldahl.

Schjeldahl has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1998 and is the magazine’s art critic. He came to the magazine from The Village Voice, where he was the art critic from 1990 to 1998. Previously, he had written frequently for the New York Times’s Arts and Leisure section. His writing has also appeared in Artforum, Art in America, the New York Times Magazine, Vogue, and Vanity Fair. 

The Betty Jean and Wayne Thiebaud Endowed Lecture honors the Thiebauds’ long commitment to educating the eye and hand along with the mind. The endowment will complement the Art Studio Program’s Visiting Artist Lecture Series, a core component of the Art Studio MFA Program, increasing its ability to invite distinguished artists, critics and curators to the UC Davis campus.