Richard Diebenkorn

Poindexter Gallery, New York
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Robles, Los Angeles (acquired in 1961)
Esther Robles Gallery, Los Angeles (acquired in 1963)
June W. Schuster, California (acquired in 1964)
Gump's Gallery, San Francisco (acquired circa 1971)
Joseph and Deborah Goldyne, Sonoma (acquired circa 1971)
Addison Associates Fine Arts, San Francisco
Daniel G. Volkmann, Jr., Missoula
Sotheby's, New York, November 10, 2010, lot 153
Acquired by the present owner from the above sale

Pasadena Art Museum, Richard Diebenkorn, September - October 1960, cat. no. 48
San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Recent Paintings, October - November 1960, cat. no. 24
New York, Poindexter Gallery, Richard Diebenkorn, March - April 1961
Los Angeles, Esther Robles Gallery, New Acquisitions, November - December 1961

This work is in very good condition overall. The nails in the wood support are visible intermittently along the edge of the panel. Under Ultraviolet light inspection, there is no evidence of restoration. Framed. *Please note the auction begins at 9:30 am on November 14th.*
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

In Landscape with Three Trees from 1959, Richard Diebenkorn cohesively ties confident gestural brushwork with an intense contemplative study and rendering of the western American landscape. As a key figure in the Bay Area Figurative Movement, Diebenkorn was influenced by his surrounding environment more than any other artist of his time. He welcomed identification as a landscape and figurative painter in an era when this could be considered retrograde. The present work was executed in a brief period during the late 1950s when Diebenkorn returned to more representational work, which shows his simultaneous desire to celebrate the lush and hilly California terrain while exploring the boundaries of non-objective painting.

Diebenkorn’s bold, sweeping brushstrokes of lush greens, cerulean blues, and warm pinks shows vestiges of his preceding Berkeley paintings from 1953 - 1956, yet the strong horizontal and diagonal lines, and planes of layered color anticipate his most celebrated Ocean Park series yet to come. Diebenkorn was well aware of his contemporaries on the East Coast, including Abstract Expressionists Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline, who he had the pleasure of meeting during a summer trip to New York City in 1953. The present work is imbued with a palpable intensity and bravura brushwork similar to the expressiveness of Kline and de Kooning, yet there is a sense of restrained tension and order beneath the rolling hills of Landscape with Three Trees.

Throughout the 1950s, Diebenkorn integrated a formalist sense of pattern into his paintings, based on aerial views and multiple angles, establishing a signature visual language of perspectival frameworks. As noted by Jane Livingstone, "By 1955, Diebenkorn had thoroughly solidified everything he had learned about abstract painting and was extending his knowledge in a number of directions.  In this period, which the artist himself later termed 'explosive,' he seemed capable both of new invention and sustained virtuosity..." (Exh. Cat., New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, The Art of Richard Diebenkorn, 1997, p. 43).

Diebenkorn maintains a fluid and balanced composition within the space of the rectangular panel, yet the power of color that suffuses the layers of Landscape with Three Trees lends the painting a luminous presence that extends well beyond the edges of its frame. Diebenkorn brilliantly combined the formal with the emotional - bringing together undulating topography with light and warmth in colorful luminous abstractions. Landscape with Three Trees is not a representation of landscape; rather it is a distillation of an environment inspired by the raw dynamism of northern California.