Richard DIEBENKORN (1922-1993)
1955 Berkeley # 32
2019 SOLD for $ 10M by Christie's
Richard Diebenkorn spent his youth in San Francisco. He completed his training at the California School of Fine Arts where he was a student of Clyfford Still. Throughout his career, he manages to be inspired by abstract expressionism while transmitting his admiration for the landscapes of the West coast, of which he displays the subtle color hues.
Painted in 1955, Berkeley # 32 is a landscaped work, with a succession of fields and woods leading to the sea. This oil on canvas 150 x 145 cm was sold for $ 10M by Christie's on May 15, 2019 from a lower estimate of $ 6M, lot 25 B.
Painted in 1955, Berkeley # 32 is a landscaped work, with a succession of fields and woods leading to the sea. This oil on canvas 150 x 145 cm was sold for $ 10M by Christie's on May 15, 2019 from a lower estimate of $ 6M, lot 25 B.
1965 Recollections of a Visit to Leningrad
2023 SOLD for $ 46M by Christie's
Richard 'Dick' Diebenkorn studied and worked in California throughout his career. Student to Still and Rothko, he does not follow their confrontations of colors and prefers the harmony.
A view through a window brings an illusion of proximity. The effect of distance is not necessary, minimizing the topographic details. Painted in 1959, Ocean through the Window was sold for $ 4M by Sotheby's on November 17, 1998.
On June 29, 2020, Sotheby's sold for $ 9M View from a Porch, oil on canvas 177 x 168 cm also painted in 1959, lot 113. The veranda partially hides the foreground of the landscape and its central post brings a symmetry which trivializes the rest of the image.
He admires Matisse's ability to transform a three dimensional space into juxtaposed surfaces on the canvas. In 1912 at Tangiers and in 1914 in Collioure and Paris, Matisse keeps the window and cancels or forgets the landscape.
Diebenkorn is invited by the State Department to visit the Soviet Union in the fall of 1964 as part of the US-USSR cultural exchange program promoted by Kennedy and Khrushchev. He had been a good candidate for that mission because he did not practice abstraction, of which the Soviets were reluctant.
The Hermitage Museum had 60 early paintings and drawings by Matisse, seized in 1917 by the state from the Shchukin collection. Diebenkorn is watching for the first time several masterpieces which he only knew through black and white reproductions. He is dazzled by the significance of these highly experimental works.
Back from Russia in the spring of 1965, he paints in that year Recollections of a Visit to Leningrad, mingling bold geometric planes with reminiscences to Matisse including the window and the floral volutes of the 1908 Desserte rouge (Harmony in Red). On the right side an abstracted shore is painted in bold colors. The area with the volutes is obscured on both sides by an opened window curtain.
This monumental oil on canvas 180 x 210 cm was sold for $ 46M by Christie's on November 9, 2023, lot 4 B.
A view through a window brings an illusion of proximity. The effect of distance is not necessary, minimizing the topographic details. Painted in 1959, Ocean through the Window was sold for $ 4M by Sotheby's on November 17, 1998.
On June 29, 2020, Sotheby's sold for $ 9M View from a Porch, oil on canvas 177 x 168 cm also painted in 1959, lot 113. The veranda partially hides the foreground of the landscape and its central post brings a symmetry which trivializes the rest of the image.
He admires Matisse's ability to transform a three dimensional space into juxtaposed surfaces on the canvas. In 1912 at Tangiers and in 1914 in Collioure and Paris, Matisse keeps the window and cancels or forgets the landscape.
Diebenkorn is invited by the State Department to visit the Soviet Union in the fall of 1964 as part of the US-USSR cultural exchange program promoted by Kennedy and Khrushchev. He had been a good candidate for that mission because he did not practice abstraction, of which the Soviets were reluctant.
The Hermitage Museum had 60 early paintings and drawings by Matisse, seized in 1917 by the state from the Shchukin collection. Diebenkorn is watching for the first time several masterpieces which he only knew through black and white reproductions. He is dazzled by the significance of these highly experimental works.
Back from Russia in the spring of 1965, he paints in that year Recollections of a Visit to Leningrad, mingling bold geometric planes with reminiscences to Matisse including the window and the floral volutes of the 1908 Desserte rouge (Harmony in Red). On the right side an abstracted shore is painted in bold colors. The area with the volutes is obscured on both sides by an opened window curtain.
This monumental oil on canvas 180 x 210 cm was sold for $ 46M by Christie's on November 9, 2023, lot 4 B.
Ocean Park
Intro
Much influenced by the work of Matisse, Richard Diebenkorn waved throughout his career between figuration and abstraction. Faithful to the Western United States, he was an active member of the Bay Area Figurative Movement, which again showed the landscape beyond abstraction.
Starting from 1967, in the series of paintings Ocean Park, the beauty of California remains the main driver of his work, but the figure disappears again. Ocean Park is a district of Santa Monica where he had just opened his studio in a room that had been once used by his friend Sam Francis.
The creation of a painting by Diebenkornis is a long process during which the artist structures and restructures the image, with increasingly tenuous variations, until he considered that the effect matches the emotion he wanted to express.
He decides at that time to give up the figuration. The frame of the window in the Ocean Parks is always partial, opening a path to infinity as Mondrian had done. It is also an excuse for colors of man-made artefacts that contrast with the transparency of the light of Southern California.
His Ocean Park series is made of 140 paintings from 1967 to 1985, structured by horizontal and oblique lines that delineate the zones of Californian colors with no overlap. The blue hues of sky and sea are often in opposition.
In the experimental phase of the Ocean Park series, the dark blue of the sea ans the sky blue are not dominant, influenced in that way by windows at Nice by Matisse. The foreground can hardly be interpreted. The loss of third dimension is in the follow of the structuration in elements by Cézanne.
The Ocean Park # 12 provides the exception of two figurative pieces, the bare branch of a tree and two blooms, that defines the verticality. The two areas of pale blue are similar and may be sky or sea, or both. They are viewed as vertical slits as through a frontal and an oblique window. This oil and charcoal on canvas 235 x 203 cm painted in 1968, passed at Christie's on May 16, 2024, lot 40 B.
Starting from 1967, in the series of paintings Ocean Park, the beauty of California remains the main driver of his work, but the figure disappears again. Ocean Park is a district of Santa Monica where he had just opened his studio in a room that had been once used by his friend Sam Francis.
The creation of a painting by Diebenkornis is a long process during which the artist structures and restructures the image, with increasingly tenuous variations, until he considered that the effect matches the emotion he wanted to express.
He decides at that time to give up the figuration. The frame of the window in the Ocean Parks is always partial, opening a path to infinity as Mondrian had done. It is also an excuse for colors of man-made artefacts that contrast with the transparency of the light of Southern California.
His Ocean Park series is made of 140 paintings from 1967 to 1985, structured by horizontal and oblique lines that delineate the zones of Californian colors with no overlap. The blue hues of sky and sea are often in opposition.
In the experimental phase of the Ocean Park series, the dark blue of the sea ans the sky blue are not dominant, influenced in that way by windows at Nice by Matisse. The foreground can hardly be interpreted. The loss of third dimension is in the follow of the structuration in elements by Cézanne.
The Ocean Park # 12 provides the exception of two figurative pieces, the bare branch of a tree and two blooms, that defines the verticality. The two areas of pale blue are similar and may be sky or sea, or both. They are viewed as vertical slits as through a frontal and an oblique window. This oil and charcoal on canvas 235 x 203 cm painted in 1968, passed at Christie's on May 16, 2024, lot 40 B.
1
1969 # 20
2014 SOLD for $ 10.2M by Sotheby's
From 1967 to 1985 in Santa Monica, Diebenkorn paints his series of 140 opuses titled Ocean Park. California is now only expressed by its colors and the landscape is replaced by a setting of triangles and quadrilaterals, but part of the window is often visible.
For example, in Ocean Park # 20, the central post separates in a surreal way the light blue of the sky and the deeper blue of the sea. Its geometric simplicity is a support for a confrontation of brilliant yellow, green, orange and peach around the two hues of blue.This oil on canvas 236 x 203 cm painted in 1969 was sold for $ 10.2M by Sotheby's on May 13, 2014, lot 39.
For example, in Ocean Park # 20, the central post separates in a surreal way the light blue of the sky and the deeper blue of the sea. Its geometric simplicity is a support for a confrontation of brilliant yellow, green, orange and peach around the two hues of blue.This oil on canvas 236 x 203 cm painted in 1969 was sold for $ 10.2M by Sotheby's on May 13, 2014, lot 39.
2
1971 # 40
2021 SOLD for $ 27M by Sotheby's
An additional maturity is reached from the numbers # 40s of the Ocean Park series, with a greater range of luminescent colors and a geometry that escapes the mere pattern of a window.
# 40 reminds the landscape viewed from the corner of a porch, in a stylization of a three-dimensional effect, previously used by the artist in 1959 in the Californian countryside. Here the porch opens to flat areas in parallel. The upper area may be the sky or the sea.
The viewer is stirred to a small deep blue quarter full circle in the bottom right corner of the marine blue. A closer attention reveals a blue window on the right and lower edges of that area, enabling to cancel the impression of an open space. It is indeed a confrontation of bright colors without a real allusion to a perspective. The lower part of the composition reminds beach and ground.
# 40, oil and charcoal on canvas 236 x 205 cm painted in 1971, was sold for $ 27M from a lower estimate of $ 20M by Sotheby's on May 12, 2021, lot 6. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
This significant opus illustrated the cover page of the catalogue of a solo exhibition of the Ocean Park series at the Marlborough gallery in New York in December 1971.
# 40 reminds the landscape viewed from the corner of a porch, in a stylization of a three-dimensional effect, previously used by the artist in 1959 in the Californian countryside. Here the porch opens to flat areas in parallel. The upper area may be the sky or the sea.
The viewer is stirred to a small deep blue quarter full circle in the bottom right corner of the marine blue. A closer attention reveals a blue window on the right and lower edges of that area, enabling to cancel the impression of an open space. It is indeed a confrontation of bright colors without a real allusion to a perspective. The lower part of the composition reminds beach and ground.
# 40, oil and charcoal on canvas 236 x 205 cm painted in 1971, was sold for $ 27M from a lower estimate of $ 20M by Sotheby's on May 12, 2021, lot 6. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
This significant opus illustrated the cover page of the catalogue of a solo exhibition of the Ocean Park series at the Marlborough gallery in New York in December 1971.
3
1971 # 48
2012 SOLD for $ 13.5M by Christie's
Ocean Park # 48 is a return to simple forms of window and through the window, with a delicate harmony of pale colors just confronted to a blue area splitted in two adjacent rectangles, light and deep blue. The whole is offering a view of the luminosity of ground, sky and sea as in the other works of the Ocean Park series.
# 48, oil on canvas 274 x 208 cm painted in 1971, was sold for $ 13.5M by Christie's on November 14, 2012, lot 19, from a lower estimate of $ 8M.
# 48, oil on canvas 274 x 208 cm painted in 1971, was sold for $ 13.5M by Christie's on November 14, 2012, lot 19, from a lower estimate of $ 8M.
4
1972 # 56
2023 SOLD for $ 11.4M by Sotheby's
After the # 48 of 1971, the Ocean Park # 50 by Diebenkorn displays a further step to a full geometry of horizontal and vertical rectangles and stripes from which the diagonals were nearly erased. # 50, oil on canvas 236 x 206 cm painted in 1972, was sold for $ 8.2M by Sotheby's on November 10, 2014, lot 23. An experience of aerial views of flattened agricultural fields is added to the window effect.
Also painted in 1972 in the same size as the # 50, the # 56 is made of the ethereal colors of ocean, sand and atmosphere : azure, periwinkle, mauve and bright yellow, separated by dark blue and light gray lines, with underpainting surfacing in reworked areas. It was sold for $ 11.4M by Sotheby's on November 15, 2023, lot 127.
Also painted in 1972 in the same size as the # 50, the # 56 is made of the ethereal colors of ocean, sand and atmosphere : azure, periwinkle, mauve and bright yellow, separated by dark blue and light gray lines, with underpainting surfacing in reworked areas. It was sold for $ 11.4M by Sotheby's on November 15, 2023, lot 127.
5
1972 # 55
2018 SOLD for $ 11M by Sotheby's
Compared with the # 50 and # 56, the Ocean Park # 55 has some experimental features in a full square format, 200 x 200 cm.
In the upper part some separating lines are disturbed and one of the major rectangular areas is a mingle of subtle colors departing to the plain effect of Mondrian's style. The deep blue area of the ocean is omitted in the whole picture. Hues of apricot pink, marigold, and cream are producing a luminescent depth. The lines are painted in vibrant violet, pale pink, red and blue.
That oil on canvas painted in 1972 was sold for $ 11M from a lower estimate of $ 7M by Sotheby's on May 16, 2018, lot 18.
In the upper part some separating lines are disturbed and one of the major rectangular areas is a mingle of subtle colors departing to the plain effect of Mondrian's style. The deep blue area of the ocean is omitted in the whole picture. Hues of apricot pink, marigold, and cream are producing a luminescent depth. The lines are painted in vibrant violet, pale pink, red and blue.
That oil on canvas painted in 1972 was sold for $ 11M from a lower estimate of $ 7M by Sotheby's on May 16, 2018, lot 18.
6
1975 #89
2014 SOLD for $ 9.7M by Sotheby's
The Ocean Park # 61 was painted in 1973. The upper side is like the color of a sunset but any idea of a landscape through a window is canceled by the areas of various colors separated by a vertical line. This oil on canvas 236 x 206 cm was sold for $ 6.8M by Sotheby's on November 10, 2014, lot 18.
Painted in 1975, five years before Diebenkorn suspended the series, the Ocean Park # 89 goes close to some effect of figuration. It is easy to see in it a sunset viewed through a window. The sky is in its right position and right mingling of hues, and the window is reinforced by three oblique lines interpretable as cracked glass. Between sky and sand, the ocean is omitted.
This oil on canvas 206 x 206 cm was sold for $ 9.7M from a lower estimate of $ 8M by Sotheby's on November 10, 2014, lot 11.
Painted in 1975, five years before Diebenkorn suspended the series, the Ocean Park # 89 goes close to some effect of figuration. It is easy to see in it a sunset viewed through a window. The sky is in its right position and right mingling of hues, and the window is reinforced by three oblique lines interpretable as cracked glass. Between sky and sand, the ocean is omitted.
This oil on canvas 206 x 206 cm was sold for $ 9.7M from a lower estimate of $ 8M by Sotheby's on November 10, 2014, lot 11.
7
1984 # 126
2018 SOLD for $ 24M by Christie's
From 1967 to 1985, the series of paintings titled Ocean Park is the interpretation by Richard Diebenkorn of the atmosphere and colors of Santa Monica. Seeking the dazzling light as de Staël had done, he goes further by sublimating the landscape in abstract compositions.
During these two decades the emotions of the artist were changing. He interrupts Ocean Park in 1980 after opus 125. He feels the need for a greater realization of his vision on large canvases and composes opus 126 to 140 in 1984 and 1985.
Most of the paintings of this ultimate Ocean Park series leave a significant place to the colors of the shore. The starting opus of the new style, # 126, is an abstract landscape in many colors with a structured geometry. Its surface is built up of innumerable washes of color, each layer gently modifying and veiling those beneath.
# 126 was sold on May 17, 2018 by Christie's for $ 24M from a lower estimate of $ 16M, lot 26 B. Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's before it passed on May 13, 2024, lot 118.
This oil on canvas 236 x 206 cm painted in 1984 displays the shimmering sun-filled colors of a Californian mid-day without shadows. Although the lowest stripe reflects the saturated blue of the sea, it is not a landscape. The two pairs of oblique lines have different vanishing points. A subtle reference to a reality is however provided by a small transparent triangle filled by the blue sky and small white clouds near the top of the image. The sun is a very elongated rectangle close to the upper edge.
During these two decades the emotions of the artist were changing. He interrupts Ocean Park in 1980 after opus 125. He feels the need for a greater realization of his vision on large canvases and composes opus 126 to 140 in 1984 and 1985.
Most of the paintings of this ultimate Ocean Park series leave a significant place to the colors of the shore. The starting opus of the new style, # 126, is an abstract landscape in many colors with a structured geometry. Its surface is built up of innumerable washes of color, each layer gently modifying and veiling those beneath.
# 126 was sold on May 17, 2018 by Christie's for $ 24M from a lower estimate of $ 16M, lot 26 B. Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's before it passed on May 13, 2024, lot 118.
This oil on canvas 236 x 206 cm painted in 1984 displays the shimmering sun-filled colors of a Californian mid-day without shadows. Although the lowest stripe reflects the saturated blue of the sea, it is not a landscape. The two pairs of oblique lines have different vanishing points. A subtle reference to a reality is however provided by a small transparent triangle filled by the blue sky and small white clouds near the top of the image. The sun is a very elongated rectangle close to the upper edge.
8
1985 # 137
2018 SOLD for $ 22.6M by Christie's
On November 15, 2018, Christie's sold for $ 22.6M Ocean Park # 137, oil on canvas 254 x 206 cm painted in 1985, lot 31 C.
Within the final sub-series, 137 is the only one that appears to be almost entirely devoted to the blue of the sea. Far from being monochrome, it offers shades that lead from left to right to the dominant zone in deep blue of the open sea.
While still admiring the colors of what had been his frame of life since 1967, Diebenkorn was tired from Los Angeles. In 1986 he prospected to settle in the countryside and made his masterpiece of print, Green, 114 x 90 cm. A copy was sold for $ 530K by Sotheby's on May 2, 2014. He bought in 1987 an old house inside a vineyard in Northern California.
Within the final sub-series, 137 is the only one that appears to be almost entirely devoted to the blue of the sea. Far from being monochrome, it offers shades that lead from left to right to the dominant zone in deep blue of the open sea.
While still admiring the colors of what had been his frame of life since 1967, Diebenkorn was tired from Los Angeles. In 1986 he prospected to settle in the countryside and made his masterpiece of print, Green, 114 x 90 cm. A copy was sold for $ 530K by Sotheby's on May 2, 2014. He bought in 1987 an old house inside a vineyard in Northern California.
