Gretchen Diebenkorn in the family’s home on Magnolia St. with Urbana #6 (1953), Berkeley, Calif., c. 1954–1955 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
The Artist
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The artist and Phyllis in the family’s home on Magnolia St., Berkeley, Calif., c. 1954–1955 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
The Diebenkorn family in their home on Magnolia St., Berkeley, Calif., c. 1955 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
The artist with Gretchen and Phyllis in their home on Magnolia St., Berkeley, Calif., c. 1955 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
Wins Abraham Rosenberg Fellowship in Art, allowing him to continue painting full-time. Second solo show at Paul Kantor Gallery in LA. Berkeley #2 is included in James Johnson Sweeney’s Younger American Painters at the Guggenheim.
Has studio at 2571 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley. Friends Paul Wonner, Theophilus “Bill” Brown, and eventually Elmer Bischoff, also have studios there. Continues abstract painting series, while occasionally joining other artists, including Park, for figure drawing sessions.
Settles in Berkeley, using dining room of the railroad apartment as studio. Reconnects with David Park. Works on art full-time, without alternate employment; makes first fetishlike objects (CR no. 1259).
Begins the numbered Berkeley paintings.
The artist with Paul Wonner and William Theophilus Brown in Wonner and Brown’s studio at 2571 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, Calif., 1955. Photograph by Lincoln Yamaguchi © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
Artist’s slide of Diebenkorn with a destroyed painting in his studio at 2571 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, Calif., 1955 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
Associate professor at California College of Arts and Crafts (CCAC), Oakland, through spring, 1958. With Park, Bischoff, Wonner, and Brown, live model drawing sessions begin in earnest. Family moves to larger rental house in Berkeley. Corresponds with Ellie Poindexter about her gallery representing him in New York.
Works begin appearing internationally, three in Rome and two in São Paulo. Work included in inaugural show at Poindexter Gallery, temporarily located at 141 East Thirty-Sixth Street in New York. Berkeley #39 (CR no. 1477) included in Whitney’s annual exhibition.
Paints Chabot Valley (CR no. 1582), widely considered the first fully realized painting of his figurative period. Diebenkorn considers this year the end of his first abstract period.