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Artist or Maker: Richard Diebenkorn (1922-1993)
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Exhibited: Minneapolis Institute of Arts,
American Paintings 1945-1957
, June-September 1957, no. 34.
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Notes: --Laura Paulson, Deputy Chairman, Americas
The present work will be included in the forthcoming Richard Diebenkorn catalogue raisonné under number RD1184.
Untitled (Still Life with Iris), is a brilliant arrangement of line and color, so simple in its arrangement-- of irises on a tablecloth-- but so bold in its application. The work is an important early example of Diebenkorn's return to figuration in the mid-1950s, in which he moved away from the Abstract Expressionist style, of California landscapes that had solidified his fame just a few years earlier, and began devoting himself to the exploration of figuration, then considered nearly taboo in an era of Greenbergian formalist politics.
Not one to sentimentalize, Diebenkorn employed simple objects for his investigation, relishing the figurative power that an ordinary cigar box or ashtray could provoke. His depictions of brilliantly-colored flowers, then, are quite rare, and this simple yet shimmering arrangement is startlingly accomplished for such an early investigation. Clearly Diebenkorn utilized such objects for their inherent abstract qualities, though, as evidenced in the blocklike arrangement of the background and turquoise-and-cream striped tablelcloth-- all of which prefigures the beauty and majesty of the abstract Ocean Park Series.
The tablecloth's striped pattern must have been a source of great interest to the artist; a tattered relic from his childhood, it reappears throughout the works of his figurative years. Its simple yet bold design, set against the still life with irises (which were probably grown by his wife, Phyllis, and casually plucked from the couple's garden), recalls the power of simple forms and elegant design, such as the work of the great fauvist Henri Matisse.
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