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The approximately
150 paintings and drawings in the exhibition provide a complete overview
of the career of this influential artist whose style evolved from abstract
expressionism through figuration and back to abstraction over the forty
years he painted. The works in the exhibition include some of the most exquisite examples from Diebenkorn's oeuvre. From the early works, there are three paintings from the Sausalito period -- bathed in earthy ochres and reds -- which characterize the true beginning of the artist's mature work as an abstract expressionist. The famous Berkeley series is well represented with paintings of intense color and brushy abstract forms, including Berkeley No. 66 from 1956, a seminal and prolific year in Diebenkorn's career when his chromatic explorations reached heroic proportions. Many of the Berkeley works were directly influenced by the music, often Mozart, that the artist listened to while he painted. The elegance and complex coloration of such works as Ingleside (1963), and Seated Figure with Hat (1967), demonstrate Diebenkorn's influential contributions to the Bay Area Figurative Art movement. His representational works include still lifes, cityscapes, landscapes, unpeopled interiors, and figurative works, examples of which are part of the retrospective. In his figurative works, Diebenkorn was less interested in portraiture than in creating psychologically complex works of beauty and harmony. In many of the women he painted, one can recognize the form of his wife Phyllis, who was a frequent and tireless model. |
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| Richard Diebenkorn Cityscape 1 1963 Collection SFMOMA |
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Also included in the exhibition is Cityscape
I (1963), from SFMOMA's permanent collection, widely regarded as a pivotal
work in Diebenkorn's transition from color-saturated figurative works and
land- and cityscapes to the geometric abstractions that make up the Ocean
Park series. Cityscape I, as well as the rarely seen Cityscape
(1963), from the Diebenkorn family collection, epitomizes the artist's creativity
during 1962-63 when he painted works that were unique in their perspective:
an elevated viewpoint that emphasizes shadow and geometry. The largest group of paintings in the exhibition are those from the Ocean Park series, which have garnered international recognition as the height of Diebenkorn's exploration of abstraction. The Ocean Park series comprises mostly large-scale works based on the full extent of the artist's reach, arms outstretched, and on the height of a canvas that he could get through the studio door. Many of the works retain a transparency where one can see the layers the artist built upon as he developed the painting into its final form. Several of the works on view have never before been shown publicly, including the Diebenkorn family's Cityscape and Ocean Park No. 116 (1979). Also included are approximately twenty works from the Diebenkorn family archives that have never been on public display. In addition, there is a group of rarely seen intimate paintings on cigar box lids from the Ocean Park period that Diebenkorn created as gifts for friends and family. This exhibition is organized by guest curator Jane Livingston for the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, in collaboration with the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. The San Francisco presentation is organized by SFMOMA Curators Janet Bishop, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation associate curator of painting and sculpture; and Gary Garrels, Elise S. Haas chief curator and curator of painting and sculpture. The Education Department is presenting a series of public programs to further enlighten visitors about Diebenkorn's work. Richard Diebenkorn is accompanied by a catalogue which is available at the MuseumStore. To order please call 415/357.4035 or email museumstore@sfmoma.org. The exhibition is sponsored by J. P. Morgan & Co. Incorporated; the Modern Art Council, an auxiliary of SFMOMA; Elaine McKeon; and Elizabeth R. Larson. Organizational support of the exhibition's U.S. tour has been provided by J. P. Morgan & Co. Incorporated and Philip Morris Companies Inc. |
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Additional support for the organization of the exhibition was provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, an anonymous donor, and the National Committee of the Whitney Museum. Copyright © 1996-2008 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art 
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