An exhibition of works on paper by Richard Diebenkorn, at Van Doren Waxter Gallery, presents a selective view of the intimate scale at which the artist devoted himself for roughly ten years. Between his early abstractions, made in Berkely, and the commanding Ocean Park series, which continue to be his best-known works, Diebenkorn largely concerned himself with figures, landscapes, and still lifes from 1956 and the mid-‘60s.

Along with others of the Bay Area Figurative painters, including David Park and Elmer Bischoff, Diebenkorn shifted away from the post-war Abstract Expressionist movement, the prevailing trend that put New York City on the art world map. He delved into figuration in an almost meditative way, improvising and reinventing his approach to art making.

In the catalogue essay for the 1989 MoMA show, The Drawings of Richard Diebenkorn, curator John Elderfield wrote, "...drawing is what sustains Diebenkon’s subjects in the process of painting....The works on paper are generally less aloof than the paintings, speaking to us with greater intimacy about the artist's emotive concerns. They confide in us more.”

The twenty-seven works on view at Van Doren Waxter show the depth and scope of the artist’s involvement with charcoal, ink, watercolor and gouache on paper—mostly on sheets smaller than 16 x 20 inches. And these are mainly fully realized, finished works, not studies for paintings to come.

In her catalogue essay for a 2003 exhibition at Berggruen Gallery, Jane Livingston, co-editor of the Diebenkorn Catalogue Raisonné wrote, “His searching, inventive attacks on the ancient problem of capturing (or posing) the figure, and the figure’s relationship to architecture and furniture and draperies, suggest a discipline worthy of Ingres or Degas….Richard Diebenkorn, that creator of the famously grand, opulent and luminous Ocean Park paintings, turns out to be one of the twentieth century’s most accomplished masters of modernist figuration, and of the intimate world of ordinary domestic existence.” more

For anyone to whom drawing is akin to breathing, this show is a must. Richard Diebenkorn: Works on Paper, through January 20^th. Van Doren Waxter, 23 East 73^rd Street, NY, NY Info. Combine it with a visit to Edvard Munch: Between the Clock and the Bed, at The Met Breuer, and Leonardo da Vinci: Divine Draftsman, at The Met for a sublime afternoon. For those who missed the massive 1989 exhibition, The Drawings of Richard Diebenkorn at MoMA, the out-of-print catalogue is available as a pdf:   https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_2140_300062884.pdf
The exhibition California Landscapes: Richard Diebenkorn | Wayne Thiebaud opens February 1 at Acquavella Galleries, 18 East 79th Street, NY, NY Info
Richard Diebenkorn's sketchbooks, held by the Cantor Art Museum, Stanford University, can be viewed online here
Images courtesy of Van Doren Wexler Gallery