State Of The Arts

Diebenkorn In New Mexico At The Phillips Collection

By Shira Pinsker

While Richard Diebenkorn has long been celebrated as one of the 20th century’s most important artists, the pivotal 30-month period he spent in Albuquerque, New Mexico between 1950 and 1952 has been largely overlooked. This summer, The Phillips Collection will present Diebenkorn in New Mexico, the first in-depth examination of this key time in the abstract expressionist artist’s creative development. Featuring some 40 works, including paintings, works on paper and one very rare welded-metal sculpture, the exhibition marks the first time these works, now in public and private collections across the country, have been exhibited together since they were created more than 50 years ago. The Phillips Collection is the final venue for the exhibition, which opens on June 21 and remains on view through September 7, 2008.

In 1950, when Diebenkorn was 28, he moved to Albuquerque to pursue a master’s degree at the University of New Mexico. The time he spent there represented a breakthrough in his artistic development and played a critical role in his exploration of abstraction. Considered his first important body of work, Diebenkorn’s paintings and drawings from this period illustrate the enduring influence of New Mexico’s textures, shapes and colors on his mature style.

Diebenkorn’s New Mexico paintings are characterized by sweeping expanses of color as well as new investigations of line and space. The exhibition features paintings such as Untitled (Albuquerque) of 1952, which utilizes both a looser brushwork as well as brighter palette to reflect the landscape around him. Seen together as a group, the works in the exhibition depict how the American Southwest affected Diebenkorn’s artistic route towards figurative painting and landscape-inspired abstractions, and foretell his acclaimed Ocean Park series, which came 16 years after he left New Mexico.

“This important exhibition makes clear that Richard Diebenkorn’s story has not been fully told until now,” says Jay Gates, director of The Phillips Collection. “The works stand as powerful evidence that he indeed found his artistic voice while in New Mexico.”

Born in Portland, OR, in 1922, Diebenkorn was raised in San Francisco and attended Stanford University. After enlisting in the Marine Corps Officer Training Program in the summer of 1943, Diebenkorn was assigned to a base 30 miles from Washington, D.C., where he became involved in mapmaking and cartography. His fascination with the irrigation patterns and geological formations he saw from the air during his first airplane flight would later have a profound impact on his painting, as seen in the aerial landscape views of many of his New Mexico paintings. After his release from the Marines, he enrolled at the California School of Fine Arts in 1946; he joined the faculty there the following year.

Diebenkorn And The Phillips Collection

Diebenkorn’s long relationship with The Phillips Collection began 65 years ago. While stationed at the Marine Base in Quantico, VA, in 1943, Diebenkorn and his wife, Phyllis, visited the museum frequently. Diebenkorn cited the Phillips Collection as a key experience for him, saying, “It wasn’t, of course, like a museum at all...it was a refuge, a sanctuary for me to absorb everything on those walls.” The artist often acknowledged the influence of works he saw at The Phillips, particularly Henri Matisse’s Studio, Quai St. Michel (1916). He was also inspired by other artists in the collection such as Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley and Pierre Bonnard.

Today, The Phillips Collection has five paintings and three works by Diebenkorn. Introduced to Diebenkorn’s work in the 1950s, Duncan Phillips purchased his first painting by the artist—Interior with a View of the Ocean (1957) in 1958, followed by another oil on canvas—Girl with Plant (1960) three years later. In 1977, Duncan’s nephew Gifford and his wife Joann Phillips donated Berkeley No.1 (1953), a painting close in date to the artist’s Albuquerque period. This painting was joined by another work from the Berkeley period, Berkeley No.12, a gift from Judith H. Miller in 1990. The first work on paper came into the collection on the occasion of a retrospective of Diebenkorn’s drawings held at The Phillips in 1989, and in 1993, soon after the artist died, his widow presented two Ocean Park works on paper that the artist had specially designated for the museum. In 1999, these drawings were augmented by the acquisition of a large oil on canvas, Ocean Park, No.38 (1971).

Exhibition Organization And Catalogue

Organized by the University of New Mexico’s Harwood Museum of Art in Taos, the exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalog including essays by Mark Lavatelli, Gerald Nordland and Charles Strong. Exhibition curators are Charles Strong and Charles Lovell; Phillips coordinating curator is Eliza Rathbone. The Deibenkorn in New Mexico tour is generously funded in part by the Thaw Charitable Trust and The Martin Foundation for the Creative Arts, and is kindly supported by the Diebenkorn family.

Visitor Information

The Phillips Collection is located in the heart of Washington’s historic Dupont Circle neighborhood, at 1600 21st Street, NW, near the Dupont Circle Metro (Q Street exit). Museum hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday Artful Evenings until 8:30 p.m.; Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed Mondays and New Year’s Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. Call 202-387-2151 or visit www.phillipscollection.org for more information.