By the middle of the 1950s, Richard Diebenkorn had become increasingly dissatisfied with the purely gestural practice of Abstract Expressionism. Thus, it was in late 1955 when Diebenkorn abruptly changed course to create his first landscapes, still lifes and figurative work. These subjects occupied the California artist over the next several decades, and the use of similar settings, objects and models encouraged him to develop a structural and chromatic simplicity not unlike the best works of Henri Matisse and even Paul Cézanne. The beginnings of this approach can be seen in Bottles, where the simplified circular forms of intersecting glass bottle, ink jar and cigarettes anchor a table made of purple, lavender, turquoise and maize planes. Despite the boldly employed brushwork, the resultant still life is a contemplative study of geometry and color.
Details
- Artist Name: Richard Diebenkorn (American, 1922-1993)
- Title: Bottles
- Date: 1960
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 34 x 26 in. (86.4 x 66 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Museum, Gift of the Artist
- Accession Number: P.1961.27
- Copyright: Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
Object Information
Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena, 1961-1975;
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, 1975.
Second Winter Invitational
- California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1961-01-01 to
Pittsburgh International Exhibition of Contemporary Painting and Sculpture
- Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute, Department of Fine Arts, 1961-10-27 to 1962-01-07
75th Anniversary Alumni Exhibition
- University of New Mexico, Art Museum, 1964-02-01 to 1964-03-31
Richard Diebenkorn Retrospective
- Washington Gallery of Modern Art (Washington, D.C.), 1964-11-06 to 1964-12-31
- Jewish Museum (New York, N.Y.), 1965-01-13 to 1965-02-21
- Pavilion Gallery (Balboa, Newport Beach, Calif.), 1965-03-14 to 1965-04-17
Richard Diebenkorn
- Whitney Museum of American Art, 1997-10-09 to 1999-01-19
The Not-So-Still Life: A Century of California Painting and Sculpture
- San Jose Museum of Art, 2003-11-22 to 2004-02-15
- Pasadena Museum of California Art, 2004-03-06 to 2004-06-27
Richard Diebenkorn - NY
- Poindexter Gallery, New York, 1956-02-28 to 1956-03-24
Richard Diebenkorn: The Berkeley Years, 1953-1966
- Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young Museum, 2013-06-22 to 2013-09-29
Richard Diebenkorn
- Norton Simon Museum, 2001-12-14 to 2002-04-08
Intimate Viewing: Reading Other People's Mail
- Norton Simon Museum, 2003-01-17 to 2003-05-19
American Art of the 1950s and 1960s from the Collection of the Norton Simon Museum
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1988-08-11 to 1994-04-03
Significant Objects: The Spell of Still Life
- Norton Simon Museum, 2012-07-20 to 2013-01-21
West Coast Art
- Pasadena Art Museum, 1972-06-20 to 1972-09-03
R. A. Herold Wing Dedication Exhibition
- Sacramento, E. B. Crocker Art Gallery, 1969-11-19 to 1969-12-31
Alternate Realities: Altoon, Diebenkorn, Lobdell, Woelffer
- Norton Simon Museum, 2022-05-13 to 2022-08-22
Permanent and Loan Collection, 1973
- Pasadena Museum of Modern Art, 1973-01-30 to 1973-12-31
- Livingston, Jane, The Art of Richard Diebenkorn, fig. 19 pp. 49, 50
- Nordland, Gerald, Richard Diebenkorn, 1987, p. 98
- Gerdts, William, Patricia Trenton, Susan Landauer, The Not-So Still Life: A Century of California Painting and Sculpture, 2003, fig. 84 pp. 95-97
Additional Artwork by Artist
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