David Park
American (Boston, Massachusetts, 1911 - 1960, Berkeley, California)David Park moved to Los Angeles in 1928 to attend the Otis Art Institute — his only formal education — but dropped out after less than a year. In 1944 he began teaching at the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute) and adopted the then-dominant mode of abstract expressionist painting.
Park never felt fully comfortable with this style, however, and in 1949 hauled all his abstract canvases to the Berkeley dump. He was the first of several Bay Area artists to reconcile thick paint and vigorous brushstrokes with figurative subjects: people engaged in contemporary, everyday life. The late 1950s were extremely productive. At the height of his national success, however, Park was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He continued working until his death a few months later.
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