Richard Diebenkorn

Richard Diebenkorn, who died in 1993, is generally acknowledged as one of the most influential American artists of the twentieth century. The luminous abstractions of his later career and the innovative figurative works of his middle years firmly established him as a master in the high tradition of modernism.

This revised and expanded edition of the first comprehensive monograph on the artist presents a rich selection of the artist's oeuvre. Until the mid-1950s, he painted in the abstract expressionist tradition (synthesizing, as he has since, such disparate influences as de Kooning, Gorky, Hopper, and Cézanne) before turning (unfashionably) to figurative painting along with artists David Park and Elmer Bischoff. He then embarked on the series of large abstract paintings for which he is best known--each titled Ocean Park after the beachside community where he worked. Reminiscent of Matisse in color and Mondrian in geometry, these are some of the most remarkable accomplishments of twentieth-century art. The updated section of this edition follows Diebenkorn's career from the mid-1980s until his death, focusing particularly on his adventurous late works on paper. In each "phase" of his career, Diebenkorn explored the intricate interplay between formal rigor and luminous, sensual color with the same masterful hand.

Along with several hundred reproductions of the artist's work, critic Gerald Nordland provides a thoughtful and informative study of Diebenkorn's life and career, an updated, comprehensive exhibition history, and a selected bibliography.

Richard Diebenkorn is quickly gaining stature as one of world's great painters of the 20th century. This excellent book by Gerald Nordland contains an informative, though limited, biography on the life and career of the artist. Included are many exceptional reproductions of his consistently high quality work.

A wonderfullly versatile painter, Diebenkorn was a bit of a maverick in that he refused to allow himself to be limited by the type of work he pursued, being equally at home with figurative, landscape and abstract work. He refused to allow himself to fall into a mold and held to the belief that the work of an artist should be difficult and full of problems needing solution. This he did throughout his long and productive career, concentrating on different goals at various times.

Being somewhat isolated due to his west coast location, he managed to maintain a sense of freshness unique to himself and his lesser regional colleagues. This enabled him to avoid elitist and other constrictive restraints existing for those in the east. For example, Diebenkorn's abstract work - which reached a pinnacle in his Ocean Park Series - can be classified as Abstract Expressionism, but he really never was part of the crowd which included Pollock, Newman, Rothko, Still, De Kooning, Kline, et al. As a matter of fact, there is evidence supporting the claim that Diebenkorn conciously shunned this prospect. Several times in his career he was presented with opportunities to migrate to the east coast, but he always declined.

The greatly-sensitive, emotional and colorist proclivities which his paintings possess speak to his great love and affinity for the works of Van Gogh, Kandinsky, Matisse and other expressionist painters. This is where his study and great love of art drew from. So in some ways, his counterparts in the eastern U.S. and he arrived at similar ends, but by quite different means.

There is another good book out on Richard Diebenkorn entitled THE ART OF RICHARD DIEBENKORN by Jane Livingston which I recommend along with this one. Livingston's book is slightly superior in its narrative content, but this book, Nordland's, is superior by way of quantity and quality of reproductions of the artist's work (just my opinion). Both are 5 star books.

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New Mexico Masterpieces
Excellent look at period less covered

Richard Diebenkorn in New Mexico
Gerald Nordland , Mark Lavatelli , and Charles Strong
Manufacturer: Museum of New Mexico Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0890134987

This paperback exhibition catalog of the retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City contains a beautifully produced plate section, arranged chronologically, that spans nearly the entire second half of the 20th century. A special highlight are Diebenkorn's notes to himself on beginning a painting.