Richard Diebenkorn

Estate of the Artist
Knoedler & Company, New York
L.A. Louver Gallery, Venice, California
Acquired by the present owner from the above in October 1994

New York, Knoedler & Company, Richard Diebenkorn: Small Format Oil on Canvas, Figures, Still Lifes and Landscapes, November - December 1994, n.p., no. 21, illustrated in color

Jane Livingston and Andrea Liguori, eds., Richard Diebenkorn: The Catalogue Raisonné, Volume Three, New Haven, 2016, p. 229, no. 2237, illustrated in color 

Subdued and meditative, yet vibrating in pulses of vivid color, Richard Diebenkorn’s Untitled (Seated Woman) from 1956-60 is an exquisite example of the artist’s unique style, in which representation, portraiture and abstraction coalesce in one painting rich in its exploration of color, line and form. While Diebenkorn was sidelined by many at the time for returning to figuration during the heyday of Abstract Expressionism, his work would soon garner critical acclaim. Untitled (Seated Woman) remains a testament to the triumph of Diebenkorn’s singular and elusive body of work from the late 1950s. Here, Diebenkorn builds up his surface with great bravado, resulting in a canvas rife with luscious brushwork and brilliant color.

Thick brushstrokes of creamy blues, white and bright violet collide with apricot oils in a riotous maelstrom, creating a juxtaposition of cool and warm colors to build up shape and texture in the model’s body and clothes. Sumptuous stripes of azure and ivory cascade down the woman’s skirt, draping elegantly over the expertly modeled knee. The model has folded her hands among the skirt’s pleats in an act of silent repose. Space is compressed in this foreshortened composition and any sense of depth flattened, yet the horizon line behind the sitter anchors the figure in an interior, however ambiguous it may be. Evoking the female portraiture of Henri Matisse, an oft-cited inspiration for the artist, Diebenkorn employed a familiar interior setting in order to formally experiment with space and depth. The model sits quietly, her downward gaze introspective and the cant of her face echoing the seemingly tilted perspective. Diebenkorn purposely obscures any specific features, denying the viewer direct identification of, or relationship with, the woman in this peaceful moment of repose. Untitled (Seated Woman) embodies all the hallmarks of Diebenkorn’s output in the 1950s and is a visual touchstone for his landscape-inspired palette of luminous color, collapsed perspective and negotiation of a figurative subject treated with an abstract sensibility.

Diebenkorn’s body of work is consistently informed by the colors and landscapes in which he executed his paintings, both figurative and abstract. Raised in Northern California and the San Francisco Bay area, Diebenkorn exhibited a fascination with drawing and painting from a young age. Although he is consistently grouped with his peers Elmer Bischoff and David Park under the Bay Area Figurative label, Diebenkorn resisted this categorization, as he preferred the flexibility to pursue both figuration and abstraction. Indeed, the artist famously said, “If you don’t assume a rigid historical mission, you have infinitely more freedom. One of the most interesting polarities in art is between representation at one end of the stick, and abstraction at the other end, and I’ve found myself all over that stick.” (Richard Diebenkorn quoted in Sarah Bancroft, “Richard Diebenkorn: A Riotous Calm,” Exh. Cat., London, Royal Academy of the Arts, Richard Diebenkorn, 2015, p. 17) Executed on the heels of the artist’s Berkeley Years, Untitled (Seated Woman) reflects Diebenkorn’s persistent examination and reexamination of the relationship between figurative and abstract painting. Bookended by the dreamy and evocative landscapes of the Urbana Series of 1952-53 and the Ocean Park paintings, in which color is articulated and structured by a nearly architectonic program, the present work is emblematic of a specific juncture in Diebenkorn’s career when, dissatisfied with abstraction, he returned to figurative painting. Of this return to figuration, Diebenkorn said, “As soon as I started using the figure my whole idea of painting changed. Maybe not in the most obvious structural sense, but these figures distorted my sense of interior or environment, or the painting itself - in a way that I welcomed...In abstract painting one can’t deal with...an object or person, a concentration of psychology which a person is as opposed to where the figure isn’t in the painting...And that’s the one thing that’s always missing for me in abstract painting, that I don’t have this kind of dialogue between elements that can be...in extreme conflict.” (Susan Larsen, tape-recorded interview with Richard Diebenkorn, May 1, 2 and 7, 1985, and December 15, 1987, transcript, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., p. 3) Untitled (Seated Woman) reflects a stilled tension between figurative painting and the overwhelming abstract sensibility of the 1950s and 1960s, a balance Diebenkorn confronted and dissected in this vibrant portrait. That the present work today remains as vibrant and stunning as it was when executed is a testament to the enduring power of Diebenkorn’s signature harmonization of styles.