Ocean Park No. 26
Ocean Park No. 26, 1970, Richard Diebenkorn. Oil on canvas. 89 x 81 in. Nerman Family Collection. © The Estate of Richard Diebenkorn, Catalogue Raisonné #2415
On View at the Getty Center: Pacific Standard Time: Crosscurrents in L.A. Painting and Sculpture, 1950-1970
Richard Diebenkorn moved to Los Angeles from Berkeley in 1966, and settled in Santa Monica, drawn to that area by the quality of the light. In 1967 he began the Ocean Park paintings and drawings, his best-known body of work. The artist acknowledged the works’ real-world referents: their boxlike compartments, often further subdivided by wedges and diagonals, correspond to boundaries both within the landscape—between sea and land (literally, ocean and park)—and between natural and human-made elements. Certain configurations suggest architectural structures, others the changing conditions of the light that filtered through the transom windows in Diebenkorn’s studio. Ocean Park No. 26 presents expansive, murky areas that are suggestive of landmasses and that achieve a precarious balance with the hints of light conveyed by translucent gray slivers and a notch of yellow.
Works of Art
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Ocean Park No. 67, 1973, Richard Diebenkorn. Oil on canvas. 100 x 81 in. The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection. © The Estate of Richard Diebenkorn, Catalogue Raisonné #1482
Explore the Archive
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Video: Sarah Bancroft speaks about Richard Diebenkorn's Ocean Park series, June 2011
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Richard Diebenkorn in his studio at Main Street and Ashland Avenue in Santa Monica, ca. 1970–71. Photo by Richard Grant. Courtesy of the Richard Diebenkorn Foundation and Richard Grant
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Richard Diebenkorn in front of his painting Cityscape in his Stanford University studio in Palo Alto, California, 1963. Photo by Leo Holub. Courtesy of The Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
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Richard Diebenkorn painting in his triangle studio in Berkeley, California, 1962. Photo by Phyllis Diebenkorn. Courtesy of The Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
