Delicious Metropolis: The Desserts and Urban Scenes of Wayne Thiebaud (Fine Art Book, California Artist Gift Book, Book of Cityscapes and Sweets)

Delicious Metropolis is a 144-page collection pairing two of the American painter Wayne Thiebaud's best-known subjects: his desserts and his California cityscapes, brought together to show how closely they echo each other.

Published by Chronicle Books in 2019, the hardcover reproduces paintings from both series. Short essays by curators, critics, and artists trace connections between them: the layers of a Neapolitan cake set against the shadows cast across a street in late-afternoon light, or the pastel tones of iced sponge cakes echoed in California's candy-colored houses. The book's page edges are printed in multiple colors, evoking the layers of one of Thiebaud's cakes.

Thiebaud built his reputation on these two recurring subjects. Desserts appear in thick, confectionery brushwork; city streets and hills are painted with the same steep, exaggerated perspective. This book reads the two as a single, continuous body of work rather than as separate series.