Beschreibung:

Richard Diebenkorn No. 7 (Ocean Park, Variation 7) 1971 gouache, wax crayon on paper 25 x 18 in. (63.5 x 45.7 cm) Initialed and dated "RD 71" lower left; further titled "variation #7" on the reverse.
Provenance Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, New York Poindexter Gallery, New York Marlborough Gallery, New York Mr. and Mrs. Tully M. Friedman, San Francisco Christie's, New York, Contemporary Art Part II, May 4, 1989, lot 212 Private collection, acquired at the above sale Christie's, New York, Post War and Contemporary Morning Session, November 16, 2006, lot 167 Acquired at the above sale by the present owner Exhibited New York, Poindexter Gallery, Drawings, 1970-71, "Ocean Park," March-April 1971. New York, Museum of Modern Art, The Drawings of Richard Diebenkorn November 17, 1988 - January 10, 1989, then traveled to Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (March 9 - May 7, 1989), San Francisco, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (June 22 - August 27, 1989), Washington, D.C., The Phillips Collection, (September 30 - December 3, 1989) Literature J. Elderfield, The Drawings of Richard Diebenkorn New York, Museum of Modern Art, 1988, p. 154 (illustrated) Catalogue Essay The Ocean Park series, one of the most masterful and fascinating bodies of work in American art, were conceived after Richard Diebenkorn relocated to Southern California from the Bay Area in 1967. This series was important in that, not only it was the largest body of work he produced; it also offered new insights into the artist’s working process, stylistic evolution and artistic explorations. Diebenkorn worked and reworked his paintings and drawings, scraping and repainting again and again, stepping away from the work, assessing an area or a whole, returning and building up layers and abstract geometric relationships and lines as well as atmospheric fields and planes. The present lot entitled No. 7 (Ocean Park, Variation 7), 1971 is an exceptional example of Diebenkorn’s earliest Ocean Park drawings. Spare and graphic, it presents a gestural exploration of color, light, form and shape. The various geometric panels featuring the cool and warm pastel shades of green, pink, yellow, grey and blue converge into a single composition with many planes divided by architectonic geometric lines of color. A thin rectangular band of pastel green is juxtaposed to a triangular panel of pinkish beige while a panel of earthy yellow merges into a smaller field of light grey. Although composed of numerous geometric shapes in various colors, the entire image dissolves into a satisfying whole and gains momentum through a mass of lines, subsequent structures and structural relationships. A combination of intention, intuition, and “improvisation,” the numerous strokes of gouache and pastel demonstrate emotions of anger, frustration, despair and relief, and contribute to a variety of textures. Instead of being a study for the paintings, this image is an exploration of “rightness” – an attempt to set up problems, to welcome mistakes, to encourage objectives, and to self-doubt only to result in a well-balanced composition. Read More