The Diebenkorn home at 217 Hillcrest Rd., Berkeley, Calif., 1956 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
The Artist
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Timeline
The Diebenkorns during the building of the artist’s studio behind his home at 217 Hillcrest Rd., Berkeley, Calif., 1956 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
The artist in the Hillcrest Road studio with Girl on a Terrace (1956), Berkeley, Calif., 1956 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
First solo show in New York: Richard Diebenkorn at Poindexter Gallery. Poindexter represents Diebenkorn until 1971. Completes Berkeley series; turns full attention to representational painting and drawing.
Diebenkorns buy a house in Berkeley Hills. Spends next two months building studio in backyard. First show of figurative paintings opens at Oakland Art Museum. Dorothy Miller selects two paintings to appear in Young American Painters, organized by MoMA.
Drawing group formalizes with Park, Bischoff and Diebenkorn meeting weekly.
The artist in his Hillcrest Road studio, Berkeley, Calif., November 1957 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
The artist in his Hillcrest Road studio with Woman by the Ocean (1955), Berkeley, Calif., 1957 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
The artist in his Hillcrest Road studio, Berkeley, Calif., November 1957 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
The artist in his Hillcrest Road studio with Girl with Cups (1957), Berkeley, Calif., November 1957 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
The artist in his home on Hillcrest Rd., Berkeley, Calif., May 1959 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
The artist in his Hillcrest Road studio, Berkeley, Calif., May 1959 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
The artist in his Hillcrest Road studio with Interior with Book (1959), Berkeley, Calif., 1959 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
The artist outside his Hillcrest Road studio, Berkeley, Calif., 1959 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
The artist outside his Hillcrest Road studio, Berkeley, Calif., 1959 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
Second solo show at Poindexter Gallery, New York with figurative paintings only. The show almost sells out in three days. Leaves position at CCAC, focuses entirely on painting. Moves to new studio on Oakland-Berkeley border.
Travels for first time to Santa Cruz Island, owned by Stanford friend Carey Stanton. Santa Cruz Island will play a significant role in Diebenkorn’s life. Paints and draws the island’s surroundings throughout numerous visits over the years.
Curator Gerald Nordland with Woman in Profile (1958) at the Pasadena Art Museum solo exhibition, 1960 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
Phyllis Diebenkorn, 1960 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
The artist and son Christopher in their home at 217 Hillcrest Rd., Berkeley, Calif., 1960 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
David Park is diagnosed with terminal cancer at age forty-nine. Diebenkorn spends much of the year caring for his friend and mentor.
Mid-career retrospective opens at Pasadena Art Museum; a version opens at the Legion of Honor in fall.
David Park dies. Lobdell joins the weekly drawing group. Elmer Bischoff, Richard Diebenkorn, David Park opens at Staempfli Gallery in NYC. The show is a tribute to the friendship between the three artists.
The artist in the Triangle Studio, Oakland, Calif., 1961 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
The artist in the Triangle Studio, Oakland, Calif., 1961 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
The artist in his home at 217 Hillcrest Rd. with an early version of Sleeping Woman (1961), Berkeley, Calif., 1961 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
The artist in the Triangle Studio, Oakland, Calif., 1961 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
Third solo show opens at Poindexter Gallery. Small survey opens at Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.
Visiting instructor at University of California Los Angeles. Fred Wight, head of UCLA Art Department, begins a personal campaign to hire Diebenkorn as a fulltime professor. Spends two weeks working as guest artist at the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles; completes set of works in 1962.
Phyllis Diebenkorn in their home at 217 Hillcrest Rd., Berkeley, Calif., 1962 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
The artist in the Triangle Studio, Oakland, Calif., 1962 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
View of the Oakland Hills from the artist’s home at 217 Hillcrest Rd., Berkeley, Calif., 1962 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
The artist at his home at 217 Hillcrest Rd. in front of an early version of Santa Cruz I (1962), Berkeley, Calif., 1962 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
The artist in the Triangle Studio, Oakland, Calif., 1962 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
The artist in the Triangle Studio with Interior with Doorway (1962), Oakland, Calif., 1963 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
The artist in his studio at Stanford University with Cityscape #1 (1963), Palo Alto, Calif., 1963 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
Is appointed first artist-in-residence at Stanford, for a full academic year. Temporarily moves to Palo Alto. But the job’s required open studio hours result in his painting very little while at Stanford.
Richard Diebenkorn: Paintings, 1961–1963, organized by Ninfa Valvo, is presented by the de Young Museum. His fourth solo show opens at Poindexter Gallery. Poindexter informs Diebenkorn that many artists, including Mark Rothko and Helen Frankenthaler, attend the opening.
Cityscape #1 (1963), Girl Smoking (1963), and Girl Looking at Landscape (1957) at the artist’s solo exhibition, Richard Diebenkorn, at the Washington Gallery of Modern Art, Washington D.C., 1964 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
Proofs for 41 Etchings Drypoints in the artist’s Hillcrest Road studio with, Berkeley, Calif., c. 1965 © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
A show of figure drawings opens at Stanford University Art Gallery. After this show and the resulting publication, Diebenkorn’s figure drawings are in high demand and are included in numerous shows across the country.
After a diagnosis in April, father dies from cancer in La Jolla. Diebenkorn focuses primarily on works on paper, producing dark and dense still lifes.
Selected to travel to the Soviet Union as a representative of the Department of State’s Cultural Exchange Program. Flies with Phyllis to Paris to await their visas. Accompanied by Deputy Director of Soviet Affairs William Luers, the Diebenkorns travel throughout Soviet Union: Uzbekistan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Romania, Yugoslavia, Serbia; visit restricted art collections at Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, and the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow; see works by Matisse, Cézanne, Renoir, Gauguin, Malevich, and others.
First international solo show opens at Waddington Galleries in London. Gerald Nordland organizes a retrospective at Washington Gallery of Modern Art in Washington, D.C., which travels to the Jewish Museum in New York and the Pavilion Gallery in Newport Beach, California.