Richard Diebenkorn

Rating:
Summary: Impresssive accounting of the artist and his work.
Review: A thorough accounting of the artist and his life. Lovely collection in full color plates of the different phases of his works. Although the represented works are not a complete collection they are well worth the price of the book.

Anyone reading this book will walk away with a good understanding and visual memory of what the artist gave the art world.

Rating:
Summary: Impresssive accounting of the artist and his work.
Review: A thorough accounting of the artist and his life. Lovely collection in full color plates of the different phases of his works. Although the represented works are not a complete collection they are well worth the price of the book.

Anyone reading this book will walk away with a good understanding and visual memory of what the artist gave the art world.

Rating:
Summary: THIS IS THE ULTIMATE DIEBENKORN BOOK
Review: For anybody that likes the work of Richard Diebenkorn, this is a must have. The reproductions and text are top quality. I have many of books on Diebenkorn and this one is by far the most complete and professional. It lays out all the development and changes in his work including many reproductions of drawings and studies that most of his books do not include. A must have for any young painter or collector.

Rating:
Summary: Skim the text, look at the reproductions
Review: There's a lot of unnecessary verbiage in this volume. Much of the text is devoted to paragraphs describing Diebenkorn's paintings, along the lines of "Patches of strong, clear colors are linked in the lower half of the canvas" or "The off-centered vase of poppies leans slightly to the right". All of this is unnecessary-I can see all of this for myself in the reproductions in the book, as can any reader-the author is not calling attention to small but telling details which might be overlooked and making an insightful analysis about them, but is rather stating the obvious. In fact there is almost a complete absence of in-depth analysis or criticism.

Like many artists, Diebenkorn's life was largely uneventful, consisting rather of the steady routine of the daily journey to the studio, the patient (or sometimes impatient) hours of work, the occasional studio visits by fellow artists (in this case fellow Bay Area figurative painters David Park and Elmer Bischoff) and the return home until the pattern is repeated the next day. The most significant episodes in Diebenkorn's biography consisted of geographical relocations-from his native Bay area to New Mexico and Illinois, a brief sojourn in New York, and his return to California. Each environment had a significant impact on Diebenkorn's painting style. There's a lack of in-depth analysis but again, much padding to little effect. While third-party sources are quoted, I was left wanting more information about what those studio conversations entailed. I wanted a more in-depth analysis of the effects of environment on painting style. Discussion of figurative painting in the context of Abstract Expressionism is a missed opportunity. What this monograph requires is fewer generalities, more succinct editing, and more analysis.

So skim the text, and skip the painting descriptions, in order to get an outline of Diebenkorn's life and the general progress of his painting, and then sit back and enjoy the large, well-done reproductions of his work. Diebenkorn's opus can be divided into three periods and all are well documented. The paintings, after all, are what matters.

Rating:
Summary: A BIOGRAPHY WITH HIGH QUALITY DIEBENKORN COLOR REPRODUCTIONS
Review: _____________________________________________________________________________

Richard Diebenkorn is quickly gaining stature as one of world's great painters of the 20th century. This excellent book by Gerald Nordland contains an informative, though limited, biography on the life and career of the artist. Included are many exceptional reproductions 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, there is evidence supporting the claim 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 THE ART OF RICHARD DIEBENKORN by Jane Livingston which I recommend along with this one. Livingston's book is slightly superior in its narrative content, but this book, Nordland's, is superior by way of quantity and quality of reproductions of the artist's work (just my opinion). Both are 5 star books.

Rating:
Summary: A BIOGRAPHY WITH HIGH QUALITY DIEBENKORN COLOR REPRODUCTIONS
Review: _____________________________________________________________________________

Richard Diebenkorn is quickly gaining stature as one of world's great painters of the 20th century. This excellent book by Gerald Nordland contains an informative, though limited, biography on the life and career of the artist. Included are many exceptional reproductions 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, there is evidence supporting the claim 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 THE ART OF RICHARD DIEBENKORN by Jane Livingston which I recommend along with this one. Livingston's book is slightly superior in its narrative content, but this book, Nordland's, is superior by way of quantity and quality of reproductions of the artist's work (just my opinion). Both are 5 star books.