Richard Diebenkorn (1922-1993)
Born in Portland, Oregon, Richard Diebenkorn became a key figure in the Bay Area (San Francisco, Oakland) figurative school of painting. Diebenkorn studied at Stanford University and later at the University of California, Berkeley. While at Berkeley, he was taught by the great Abstract Expressionist, Hans Hofmann. He credited Edward Hopper, Paul Cezanne and Arshile Gorky as major influences on his painting.
During the 1950s, Diebenkorn's work was largely abstract, with an emphasis on gestural brushwork and strong composition. His figurative work was marked by vibrant colors forming spaces into which Diebenkorn would place a simplified or seated figure. The figurative work of Diebenkorn helped mark the beginning of the Bay Area figurative school.
In the mid-1960s, Diebenkorn settled in Santa Monica, CA. Around this time, he turned away from imagery and focused purely on the abstract, creating his famous "Ocean Park" series. These paintings are geometric abstractions of line and space, which retain visible reminders of their underlying reworking. The influence of California - it's light and color, as well as coastal allusions to sky, ocean, seaside and sun - can be seen throughout the series. Diebenkorn was the U.S. representative at the Venice Biennale in 1978.
Diebenkorn left Santa Monica in 1988 and returned to the Bay Area, where he built a studio in Healdsburg, in the vineyards north of San Francisco. After a heart attack in 1989, followed by a series of operations and illnesses, he gave up working on his characteristically large canvases to concentrate on a series of gouache drawings. He made two beautifully refined etchings at Crown Point Press, San Francisco, in 1991 and 1992. Also in 1992, a major Diebenkorn paintings retrospective was organized by the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London. The exhibition subsequently traveled to Germany, Spain and California.
Richard Diebenkorn passed away in Berkeley, California in 1993.