Rating: 
Summary: Comprehensive and Beautiful
Review: This book contains plates of most of Diebenkorn's well-known works -- all very high quality reproductions. If you are a student of abstract expressionism, you deserve this book. It is an absolute steal at the current price. This will likely become a collectors item.
Rating:
Summary: AN EXCELLENT BIOGRAPHY/CATALOG ON A GREAT AMERICAN ARTIST
Review: _____________________________________________________________________________Richard Diebenkorn is quickly gaining stature as one of world's great painters of the 20th century. This excellent book by Jane Livingston is a replete biography - also discussing the development of his artistic skill by providing insight on Diebenkorn's philosophy of painting. Many of his own personal quotes and writings are drawn upon here as well as some examples of his consistently high quality work. A wonderfullly versatile painter, Diebenkorn was a bit of a maverick in that he refused to allow himself to be limited by the type of work he pursued, being equally at home with figurative, landscape and abstract work. He refused to allow himself to fall into a mold and held to the belief that the work of an artist should be difficult and full of problems needing solution. This he did throughout his long and productive career, concentrating on different goals at various times. Being somewhat isolated due to his west coast location, he managed to maintain a sense of freshness unique to himself and his lesser regional colleagues. This enabled him to avoid elitist and other constrictive restraints existing for those in the east. For example, Diebenkorn's abstract work - which reached a pinnacle in his Ocean Park Series - can be classified as Abstract Expressionism, but he really never was part of the crowd which included Pollock, Newman, Rothko, Still, De Kooning, Kline, et al. As a matter of fact, we can gather from comments made in this book that Diebenkorn conciously shunned this prospect. Several times in his career he was presented with opportunities to migrate to the east coast, but he always declined. The greatly-sensitive, emotional and colorist proclivities which his paintings possess speak to his great love and affinity for the works of Van Gogh, Kandinsky, Matisse and other expressionist painters. This is where his study and great love of art drew from. So in some ways, his counterparts in the eastern U.S. and he arrived at similar ends, but by quite different means. There is another good book out on Richard Diebenkorn entitled simply RICHARD DIEBENKORN by Gerald Nordland which I recommend along with this one. Nordland's book is superior by way of quantity and quality of reproductions of the artist's work, but this book, Livingston's, is slightly superior in its narrative content (just my opinion). Both are 5 star books.
Rating:
Summary: AN EXCELLENT BIOGRAPHY/CATALOG ON A GREAT AMERICAN ARTIST
Review: _____________________________________________________________________________ Richard Diebenkorn is quickly gaining stature as one of world's great painters of the 20th century. This excellent book by Jane Livingston is a replete biography - also discussing the development of his artistic skill by providing insight on Diebenkorn's philosophy of painting. Many of his own personal quotes and writings are drawn upon here as well as some examples of his consistently high quality work. A wonderfullly versatile painter, Diebenkorn was a bit of a maverick in that he refused to allow himself to be limited by the type of work he pursued, being equally at home with figurative, landscape and abstract work. He refused to allow himself to fall into a mold and held to the belief that the work of an artist should be difficult and full of problems needing solution. This he did throughout his long and productive career, concentrating on different goals at various times. Being somewhat isolated due to his west coast location, he managed to maintain a sense of freshness unique to himself and his lesser regional colleagues. This enabled him to avoid elitist and other constrictive restraints existing for those in the east. For example, Diebenkorn's abstract work - which reached a pinnacle in his Ocean Park Series - can be classified as Abstract Expressionism, but he really never was part of the crowd which included Pollock, Newman, Rothko, Still, De Kooning, Kline, et al. As a matter of fact, we can gather from comments made in this book that Diebenkorn conciously shunned this prospect. Several times in his career he was presented with opportunities to migrate to the east coast, but he always declined. The greatly-sensitive, emotional and colorist proclivities which his paintings possess speak to his great love and affinity for the works of Van Gogh, Kandinsky, Matisse and other expressionist painters. This is where his study and great love of art drew from. So in some ways, his counterparts in the eastern U.S. and he arrived at similar ends, but by quite different means. There is another good book out on Richard Diebenkorn entitled simply RICHARD DIEBENKORN by Gerald Nordland which I recommend along with this one. Nordland's book is superior by way of quantity and quality of reproductions of the artist's work, but this book, Livingston's, is slightly superior in its narrative content (just my opinion). Both are 5 star books.
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