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Lot Essay
This work will be included in the forthcoming Richard Diebenkorn catalogue raisonné of paintings and drawings being prepared by the Estate of Richard Diebenkorn.
Richard Diebenkorn's Untitled (Ocean Park) from 1984 is a stunning painting on paper from the eponymous series for which the artist is best known. Begun in 1968, the Ocean Park works were instantly acclaimed as major achievements--Diebenkorn would mine its rich possibilities for the remainder of his career.
The series is directly indebted to Henri Matisse's near abstract paintings from 1909-1916, in which the French master painted spare interiors that became rigid yet sensuous geometric patterns. Diebenkorn's Ocean Park works take Matisse's ideas even further in their abstract quality, yet retain representational references. In Untitled (Ocean Park), the blue/green horizontal form at the top suggests a Matissean window, looking out onto a body of water, with houses or sailboats in the distance.
Diebenkorn created drawings and paintings on paper throughout his career, and gave them the same care and deliberation as his works on canvas. They are not studies for larger paintings, but independent and completely realized works. Writing in the catalogue for the landmark Diebenkorn exhibition of Works on Paper which included the present work, John Elderfield wrote, "Each work on paper is a prolonged meditation on what drawing can accomplish at the threshold of painting" (The Drawings of Richard Diebenkorn, New York, p. 52).
Untitled (Ocean Park) has a pronounced horizontality, which immediately evokes an aerial landscape, an effect accentuated by the rich, clay-red expanse that bring the mountains and desert of the American Southwest to mind. At the same time, the composition is also flag-like in quality.
Diebenkorn was close to the present owner and personally requested it for the aforementioned Works on Paper retrospective, which was held at the Museum of Modern Art. The importance of this painting was evident to Diebenkorn, when he wrote, "The work they are asking for is Untitled (Ocean Park), 1984, and I must tell you that I consider this irreplaceable in a review of my efforts in drawing and painting on paper. I hope very much that you will agree to lend it...This exhibition means a great deal to me, and for me it will be definitive. Your piece, you must know, is crucial to it" (R. Diebenkorn, letter to present owner, 23 May 1988).
Richard Diebenkorn's Untitled (Ocean Park) from 1984 is a stunning painting on paper from the eponymous series for which the artist is best known. Begun in 1968, the Ocean Park works were instantly acclaimed as major achievements--Diebenkorn would mine its rich possibilities for the remainder of his career.
The series is directly indebted to Henri Matisse's near abstract paintings from 1909-1916, in which the French master painted spare interiors that became rigid yet sensuous geometric patterns. Diebenkorn's Ocean Park works take Matisse's ideas even further in their abstract quality, yet retain representational references. In Untitled (Ocean Park), the blue/green horizontal form at the top suggests a Matissean window, looking out onto a body of water, with houses or sailboats in the distance.
Diebenkorn created drawings and paintings on paper throughout his career, and gave them the same care and deliberation as his works on canvas. They are not studies for larger paintings, but independent and completely realized works. Writing in the catalogue for the landmark Diebenkorn exhibition of Works on Paper which included the present work, John Elderfield wrote, "Each work on paper is a prolonged meditation on what drawing can accomplish at the threshold of painting" (The Drawings of Richard Diebenkorn, New York, p. 52).
Untitled (Ocean Park) has a pronounced horizontality, which immediately evokes an aerial landscape, an effect accentuated by the rich, clay-red expanse that bring the mountains and desert of the American Southwest to mind. At the same time, the composition is also flag-like in quality.
Diebenkorn was close to the present owner and personally requested it for the aforementioned Works on Paper retrospective, which was held at the Museum of Modern Art. The importance of this painting was evident to Diebenkorn, when he wrote, "The work they are asking for is Untitled (Ocean Park), 1984, and I must tell you that I consider this irreplaceable in a review of my efforts in drawing and painting on paper. I hope very much that you will agree to lend it...This exhibition means a great deal to me, and for me it will be definitive. Your piece, you must know, is crucial to it" (R. Diebenkorn, letter to present owner, 23 May 1988).