Hudson Review: At the Galleries
Summer 2024
By Karen Wilkin
A little farther downtown, at Van Doren Waxter, “Richard Diebenkorn: Figures and Faces” brought together an impressive group of early works by Thiebaud’s close friend and near coeval. (Born in 1922, Diebenkorn died in 1993.) Small, broadly painted heads, distinct individuals brought to life with a few bold, seemingly casual strokes, along with some equally broad wash drawings of studio interiors and nudes, all from the late 1950s and (mostly) early 1960s, reminded us of Diebenkorn’s connection with David Park. The older Park acted as a kind of mentor to younger Bay Area artists of Diebenkorn’s generation, encouraging them to address the figure at a time when abstraction was vaunted as an essential for serious art.