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estebanana -> RE: Diebenkorn in London (May 8 2015 1:29:51)
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Yeah every Real Estate office and and girls college dorm probably has an Ocean Park poster. The article in the Guardian even mentions that Diebenkorn OP posters are common.
I don't think his series really was derived directly from the influence of Deco design, but maybe a bit of that flavor leaked into the surface reading of the pictures now and then.
The Ocean Park paintings and drawings are an out growth of a deep and rigorous study of the space in paintings by other artists like Mondrian and Matisse, and lots of other factors. They are beautiful and accessible right from the start, but as you look and look they reveal a lot more. They look easy and pretty, but there's a lot of trial and error, erasing, painting over, changes, fixes. And he leaves it all out in the open to be read like a history of the paintings manufacture.
I think the light in these paintings really has local Southern California flavor and truth. But formally and structurally they are pinned together by his understanding of the best of 20th century abstract painting. I've always been impressed, awed by his work, but this think what is in the air now is a lot of people who were his detractors in the 1980's are coming back to realize that over time the best painting distinguishes itself and the other stuff falls away. The 'hard core' arty- farty people in the 1980s and 90's considered Diebenkorn to be "soft" and "easy" to comprehend, but the real truth is that his pictures are lush, beautiful, and carry uncommon discipline and rigor in how Diebenkorn thought them up.
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