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Lot Essay
“…the figure exerts a continued and unspecified influence on the painting as the canvas develops. The represented forms are loaded with psychological feeling. It can’t ever be just a painting”—Richard Diebenkorn
(R. Diebenkorn, quoted by J. Elderfield, “Figure and Field,” in Richard Diebenkorn, exh. cat., Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 1991, p. 31).
Richard Diebenkorn’s Untitled (Nude Woman in Blue Chair) is an opulent example of the artist’s figurative style, a body of work which dominated a significant part of the artist’s early career. Filling almost the entire picture plane, the naked figure of a young women sits sensually in a blue arm chair. Resting her head on her right arm, she stares out into the middle distance seemingly engrossed in her own thoughts, comfortable with her nudity. Diebenkorn’s characteristically fluid brushwork caresses the surface of the paper (an important and fundamental medium for the artist), imparting its pigment in liquescent pools of rich color while tracing out the elements of what would eventually become his iconic Ocean Park composition. The figure is enveloped by these expanses of deep blues, rich purples, and organic greens which are then traversed by two slivers of bright red, pink and orange as Diebenkorn highlights the Fauve-like reflections of light bouncing off the arms of the chair. Amid these washes of color, the artist paints his figure with delicate poise. He trails pink flesh tones run the length of the sheet, drawing the eye down the figure. The delicate rendering of human skin is enhanced by the surface of the paper as it picks up and holds the pigment in irregular ways, mimicking the natural subtleties of human skin. Untitled (Nude Woman in Blue Chair) has been in the same private collection for the past 25 years and remains one of the most sumptuous examples from this seminal body of the artist’s work.
Untitled (Nude Woman in Blue Chair) also highlights Diebnekorn’s particular interest in the depiction of the face. In this particular example, he leaves plenty of space between the upper edge of the sheet and the crown of the head, a rare occurrence in his figurative works which often feature heads touching or even bleeding over the upper edge of the sheet. As with many of the figurative paintings, he envelops the face in a painterly haze as pools of bejeweled color seep into the surface of the paper allowing for an almost dreamlike appearance. “I had just put in over ten years of abstract painting behind me….I wanted it both ways—a figure with a credible face—but also a painting wherein the shapes, including the face shape, worked with the overall power that I come to feel was a requirement of a total work… I knew why sometimes Matisse left the face blank” (R. Diebenkorn, quoted by J. Bishop, “Making Matisse His Own: Richard Diebenkorn’s Early Abstractions and Figureative Paintings,” in J. Bishop & K. Rothkopf, Matisse/Diebenkorn, exh. cat., Baltimore Museum of Art, 2016, p. 26).
Diebenkorn spent much of the early part of his career concerned with interiors—depictions of space and their relationship with the forms in them. Both he and his hero Matisse often dealt with this by placing their subjects on a chair. Matisse often placed his subjects in heavily patterned chairs, for example the heavily brocaded green chair in Odalisque with a Tambourine, 1925-26 (Museum of Modern Art, New York), a compositional device which Diebenkorn would incorporate in many of his paintings by positioning his subjects in a variety of chairs ranging from the everyday folding chairs to the more substantial upholstered example, with its vivid red stripe, featured in the present work. As Bishop argues, Diebenkorn (and others) had just come off a decade of Abstract Expressionism and were reacting to this, applying it to representation, “figures had to be situated solidly in environment” and a chair was the most suitable device to do that (J. Bishop, ibid. p. 25).
Currently the subject of a major exhibition on the subject organized by the Baltimore Museum of Art/San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Diebenkorn has spent much of his career in a constant conversation with Matisse. This began in 1943 while he was still a student at Stanford University and he was taken by his professor to visit Sarah Stein (sister-in-law of Gertrude and Leo Stein) and one of the most prominent collectors of Matisse’s works (including at the time thirty paintings, sixteen drawings, and eight bronzes). Diebenkorn was enthralled. Stein gave Diebenkorn a mounted reproduction of a Matisse drawing of a nude woman seen from behind. “Right there I made contact with Matisse,” the artist later said, “and it has just stuck with me all the way” (R. Diebenkorn, quoted by J.Bishop, “Making Matisse His Own: Richard Diebenkorn’s Early Abstractions and Figurative Paintings,” in J. Bishop and K. Rothkopf, Matisse/Diebenkorn, exh. cat., Baltimore Museum of Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2016, p. 21).
(R. Diebenkorn, quoted by J. Elderfield, “Figure and Field,” in Richard Diebenkorn, exh. cat., Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 1991, p. 31).
Richard Diebenkorn’s Untitled (Nude Woman in Blue Chair) is an opulent example of the artist’s figurative style, a body of work which dominated a significant part of the artist’s early career. Filling almost the entire picture plane, the naked figure of a young women sits sensually in a blue arm chair. Resting her head on her right arm, she stares out into the middle distance seemingly engrossed in her own thoughts, comfortable with her nudity. Diebenkorn’s characteristically fluid brushwork caresses the surface of the paper (an important and fundamental medium for the artist), imparting its pigment in liquescent pools of rich color while tracing out the elements of what would eventually become his iconic Ocean Park composition. The figure is enveloped by these expanses of deep blues, rich purples, and organic greens which are then traversed by two slivers of bright red, pink and orange as Diebenkorn highlights the Fauve-like reflections of light bouncing off the arms of the chair. Amid these washes of color, the artist paints his figure with delicate poise. He trails pink flesh tones run the length of the sheet, drawing the eye down the figure. The delicate rendering of human skin is enhanced by the surface of the paper as it picks up and holds the pigment in irregular ways, mimicking the natural subtleties of human skin. Untitled (Nude Woman in Blue Chair) has been in the same private collection for the past 25 years and remains one of the most sumptuous examples from this seminal body of the artist’s work.
Untitled (Nude Woman in Blue Chair) also highlights Diebnekorn’s particular interest in the depiction of the face. In this particular example, he leaves plenty of space between the upper edge of the sheet and the crown of the head, a rare occurrence in his figurative works which often feature heads touching or even bleeding over the upper edge of the sheet. As with many of the figurative paintings, he envelops the face in a painterly haze as pools of bejeweled color seep into the surface of the paper allowing for an almost dreamlike appearance. “I had just put in over ten years of abstract painting behind me….I wanted it both ways—a figure with a credible face—but also a painting wherein the shapes, including the face shape, worked with the overall power that I come to feel was a requirement of a total work… I knew why sometimes Matisse left the face blank” (R. Diebenkorn, quoted by J. Bishop, “Making Matisse His Own: Richard Diebenkorn’s Early Abstractions and Figureative Paintings,” in J. Bishop & K. Rothkopf, Matisse/Diebenkorn, exh. cat., Baltimore Museum of Art, 2016, p. 26).
Diebenkorn spent much of the early part of his career concerned with interiors—depictions of space and their relationship with the forms in them. Both he and his hero Matisse often dealt with this by placing their subjects on a chair. Matisse often placed his subjects in heavily patterned chairs, for example the heavily brocaded green chair in Odalisque with a Tambourine, 1925-26 (Museum of Modern Art, New York), a compositional device which Diebenkorn would incorporate in many of his paintings by positioning his subjects in a variety of chairs ranging from the everyday folding chairs to the more substantial upholstered example, with its vivid red stripe, featured in the present work. As Bishop argues, Diebenkorn (and others) had just come off a decade of Abstract Expressionism and were reacting to this, applying it to representation, “figures had to be situated solidly in environment” and a chair was the most suitable device to do that (J. Bishop, ibid. p. 25).
Currently the subject of a major exhibition on the subject organized by the Baltimore Museum of Art/San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Diebenkorn has spent much of his career in a constant conversation with Matisse. This began in 1943 while he was still a student at Stanford University and he was taken by his professor to visit Sarah Stein (sister-in-law of Gertrude and Leo Stein) and one of the most prominent collectors of Matisse’s works (including at the time thirty paintings, sixteen drawings, and eight bronzes). Diebenkorn was enthralled. Stein gave Diebenkorn a mounted reproduction of a Matisse drawing of a nude woman seen from behind. “Right there I made contact with Matisse,” the artist later said, “and it has just stuck with me all the way” (R. Diebenkorn, quoted by J.Bishop, “Making Matisse His Own: Richard Diebenkorn’s Early Abstractions and Figurative Paintings,” in J. Bishop and K. Rothkopf, Matisse/Diebenkorn, exh. cat., Baltimore Museum of Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2016, p. 21).