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拍品專文
"Now, the idea is to get everything right—It’s not just color or form or space or line—it’s everything all at once." Richard Diebenkorn
Richard Diebenkorn’s Untitled exemplifies the renowned American painter’s mature mastery of abstraction and continued exploration of form, color and space. After a brief flirtation with figuration, in the mid-1960s Richard Diebenkorn returned to abstraction with his iconic Ocean Park series, the genre with which he made his name in the early 1950s. With Untitled, Diebenkorn distills his singular vision and idiosyncratic style developed in the Ocean Park works into a composition of striking simplicity and depth which utilizes an intricate painterly complexity to invite intimate, prolonged viewing.
In Untitled, Richard Diebenkorn employs a complex geometric structure of overlapping shapes and layered planes, embodying his ongoing dialogue between abstraction and figuration. The composition is dominated by intersecting vertical and horizontal lines, creating a dynamic sense of movement across the surface. Soft, muted colors evoke the calm and contemplative atmosphere of the Southern California coast, while vibrant bands of color along the left side introduce a contrasting energy, adding depth and complexity to the overall structure. This interplay between muted and vibrant tones, osculating between structure and liberality, is characteristic of Diebenkorn’s mature work. His use of gouache, crayon, and collage elements establishes a rich texture, inviting viewers to engage not only with the formal qualities but also with the materiality of the piece. Articulated pentimenti—visible revisions to the undrawing of the work—speak to Diebenkorn’s meticulous process, balancing structure and spontaneity with the fluidity of an Old Master draftsman; the artist distills decades of practice and experimentation into his confident lines and brushstrokes, revising the work in real time with the surety of late Titian. Diebenkorn’s lines—some sharp and precise, others gestural and fluid—create a rhythm and flow within the composition, while the grid-like structure serves as its anchor. A triangular form subtly emerges in the lower right quadrant through the layering of shapes and colors, suggesting an architectural sense of space. As in his Ocean Park paintings, Diebenkorn’s attention to spatial relationships in Untitled generates an abstract depth, with parts of the composition receding while others push forward against the picture pane.
Closely held in Leslie Feely’s collection since the year after its creation, Untitled (1990) shares many visual and formal qualities with Diebenkorn’s other celebrated Ocean Park paintings, notably in its blend of geometric abstraction, highly-worked surfaces, and subtle chromatic shifts. Begun in 1967, the series is widely regarded as one of the premier achievements in postwar American art. In the present work, the hallmarks of the Ocean Park series are presented on a more intimate scale, allowing for a closer exploration of Diebenkorn’s refined techniques. The work demonstrates his ongoing engagement with the possibilities of abstraction, his nuanced use of color and line, and his ability to evoke spatial depth without resorting to overt figuration.
Diebenkorn’s muted yet luminous color palette in Untitled, along with the geometric structure of the composition, emerges from Diebenkorn’s discovery of and engagement with Henri Matisse. In 1964, during a U.S. State Department-organized trip to Paris and the USSR, Diebenkorn encountered Matisse’s work in person for the first time. Reflecting on the experience, he later remarked, “it was just a great trip, it just changed my head in—in a lot of ways I think… The representational thing, the figure thing, was kind of running its course. It was getting tougher and tougher, and about the time of the trip… things really started to flatten out” (R. Diebenkorn, quoted by K. Rothkopf, “Richard Diebenkorn and Matisse, from Russia to Ocean Park,” in J. Bishop and K. Rothkopf, Matisse/Diebenkorn, exh. cat., Baltimore Museum of Art, Munich, 2016. pp. 120-121). In Untitled, Matisse’s influence is evident in the way Diebenkorn employs paper collage to create subtle shifts in tone and texture, employing color as a structural element in a spatially flattened composition. Like Matisse, Diebenkorn’s compositions feel both expansive and intimate, using color to define space and evoke emotion. Nevertheless, Diebenkorn masterfully synthesizes these influences into a visual language uniquely his own, rooted in modernist tradition but deeply connected to the distinct light and landscape of the American West.
Widely celebrated as a titan of the twentieth century, Diebenkorn created a consistently intriguing body of work throughout his career. Untitled stands as a testament to Diebenkorn’s lifelong exploration of abstraction and his ability to distill complex ideas into simple yet powerful visual forms: “It’s not just color or form or space or line—it’s everything all at once.” (R. Diebenkorn, quoted in S. Bancroft, "A View of Ocean Park," Richard Diebenkorn: The Ocean Park Series, Newport Beach, 2012, p. 15) In Untitled, Diebenkorn achieves a perfect balance of these elements, creating a composition that is at once serene and dynamic, formal and intuitive. As it reemerges on the market as part of Lelie Feely’s collection after more than three decades, Untitled stands as a rare work that not only embodies the culmination of Diebenkorn’s artistic journey but also resonates with the broader trajectory of 20th-century art.
Richard Diebenkorn’s Untitled exemplifies the renowned American painter’s mature mastery of abstraction and continued exploration of form, color and space. After a brief flirtation with figuration, in the mid-1960s Richard Diebenkorn returned to abstraction with his iconic Ocean Park series, the genre with which he made his name in the early 1950s. With Untitled, Diebenkorn distills his singular vision and idiosyncratic style developed in the Ocean Park works into a composition of striking simplicity and depth which utilizes an intricate painterly complexity to invite intimate, prolonged viewing.
In Untitled, Richard Diebenkorn employs a complex geometric structure of overlapping shapes and layered planes, embodying his ongoing dialogue between abstraction and figuration. The composition is dominated by intersecting vertical and horizontal lines, creating a dynamic sense of movement across the surface. Soft, muted colors evoke the calm and contemplative atmosphere of the Southern California coast, while vibrant bands of color along the left side introduce a contrasting energy, adding depth and complexity to the overall structure. This interplay between muted and vibrant tones, osculating between structure and liberality, is characteristic of Diebenkorn’s mature work. His use of gouache, crayon, and collage elements establishes a rich texture, inviting viewers to engage not only with the formal qualities but also with the materiality of the piece. Articulated pentimenti—visible revisions to the undrawing of the work—speak to Diebenkorn’s meticulous process, balancing structure and spontaneity with the fluidity of an Old Master draftsman; the artist distills decades of practice and experimentation into his confident lines and brushstrokes, revising the work in real time with the surety of late Titian. Diebenkorn’s lines—some sharp and precise, others gestural and fluid—create a rhythm and flow within the composition, while the grid-like structure serves as its anchor. A triangular form subtly emerges in the lower right quadrant through the layering of shapes and colors, suggesting an architectural sense of space. As in his Ocean Park paintings, Diebenkorn’s attention to spatial relationships in Untitled generates an abstract depth, with parts of the composition receding while others push forward against the picture pane.
Closely held in Leslie Feely’s collection since the year after its creation, Untitled (1990) shares many visual and formal qualities with Diebenkorn’s other celebrated Ocean Park paintings, notably in its blend of geometric abstraction, highly-worked surfaces, and subtle chromatic shifts. Begun in 1967, the series is widely regarded as one of the premier achievements in postwar American art. In the present work, the hallmarks of the Ocean Park series are presented on a more intimate scale, allowing for a closer exploration of Diebenkorn’s refined techniques. The work demonstrates his ongoing engagement with the possibilities of abstraction, his nuanced use of color and line, and his ability to evoke spatial depth without resorting to overt figuration.
Diebenkorn’s muted yet luminous color palette in Untitled, along with the geometric structure of the composition, emerges from Diebenkorn’s discovery of and engagement with Henri Matisse. In 1964, during a U.S. State Department-organized trip to Paris and the USSR, Diebenkorn encountered Matisse’s work in person for the first time. Reflecting on the experience, he later remarked, “it was just a great trip, it just changed my head in—in a lot of ways I think… The representational thing, the figure thing, was kind of running its course. It was getting tougher and tougher, and about the time of the trip… things really started to flatten out” (R. Diebenkorn, quoted by K. Rothkopf, “Richard Diebenkorn and Matisse, from Russia to Ocean Park,” in J. Bishop and K. Rothkopf, Matisse/Diebenkorn, exh. cat., Baltimore Museum of Art, Munich, 2016. pp. 120-121). In Untitled, Matisse’s influence is evident in the way Diebenkorn employs paper collage to create subtle shifts in tone and texture, employing color as a structural element in a spatially flattened composition. Like Matisse, Diebenkorn’s compositions feel both expansive and intimate, using color to define space and evoke emotion. Nevertheless, Diebenkorn masterfully synthesizes these influences into a visual language uniquely his own, rooted in modernist tradition but deeply connected to the distinct light and landscape of the American West.
Widely celebrated as a titan of the twentieth century, Diebenkorn created a consistently intriguing body of work throughout his career. Untitled stands as a testament to Diebenkorn’s lifelong exploration of abstraction and his ability to distill complex ideas into simple yet powerful visual forms: “It’s not just color or form or space or line—it’s everything all at once.” (R. Diebenkorn, quoted in S. Bancroft, "A View of Ocean Park," Richard Diebenkorn: The Ocean Park Series, Newport Beach, 2012, p. 15) In Untitled, Diebenkorn achieves a perfect balance of these elements, creating a composition that is at once serene and dynamic, formal and intuitive. As it reemerges on the market as part of Lelie Feely’s collection after more than three decades, Untitled stands as a rare work that not only embodies the culmination of Diebenkorn’s artistic journey but also resonates with the broader trajectory of 20th-century art.