Richard Diebenkorn and Ocean Park

A few weeks ago I was chatting with a chief curator about a Richard Diebenkorn painting in one of his galleries. "You know," I said. "It's remarkable that there's never been a full, comprehensive Ocean Park survey exhibit."

The curator paused. "Are you sure about that?" he said, less asking than implying I should double-check Diebenkorn's exhibition history.

"Completely sure," I said. "There's never been a Berkeley show either. It's bizarre. It's probably the contemporary art show most in need of being done."

The curator was still disbelieving, but allowed me my fervor. It's true. There's never been a museum (or gallery, for that matter) exhibit surveying the paintings, the drawings, the paintings-on-paper, or the three together. (Paging John Elderfield...) There hasn't been a Berkeley show either. Next year Taos' Harwood Museum will launch (and travel) a show about Diebenkorn's Albuquerque series, made from 1950-52. Maybe Urbana is next.

The highlight of my recent Bay Area trip was seeing 14 Diebenkorns at the de Young, Stanford's Cantor Arts Center, and at SFMOMA. (Well, kinda. I still don't understand how SFMOMA had only one Diebenkorn on view. That would be like MoMA showing one Pollock. Then again I don't understand much about SFMOMA's relationship to contemporary art made in California, except that it seems to barely want one.)

The de Young is the best place in America to see Diebenkorn right now. Not only did the museum have on view seven paintings and three prints when I was there last month, but the way it shows them is sublime.

The day I was at the de Young Golden Gate Park was swaddled in a thick fog, giving 10 am a more intense version of the light you might get at dusk. The light coming into the de Young's modern and contemporary galleries was already gentle, and it was further softened by the opaque sunlights sat the top of the gallery. A couple of bulbs 25 feet above the floor didn't add much light. I sat down on the floor in front of Ocean Park #116 (above) and soaked it in. (Benches people, benches.)

The most mature Diebenkorn Ocean Park paintings -- this one was painted in 1979 -- tend toward Mondrian in terms of both color and in the relationships between color and space. (You can also see it in MOCA's #131, at right.) In #116 a strip of Heinz 57 red at the top of the painting blances the slate blue that dominates the bottom half of the painting. The red band goes all the way across the painting; The slate blue is cut in from the left and right edges of the painting. Because in Diebenkorn you can often see what he thought about doing but didn't: He was going to stop the blue even further away from the right-hand side of the painting, but changed his mind and extended it.

In between the red and the blue are yellowish oranges and washed-out greens. Some black curving lines suggest how light might might bounce around inside the painting. One of the parlor games I play with Ocean Parks is to wonder where or what in Santa Monica Diebenkorn was painting. With this one I picture the slate blue as the fog over the Pacific Ocean, the red band as the sun rising toward the east.

I enjoyed another Diebenkorn Ocean Park painting at Stanford. None of SFMOMA's were on view, which is more the pity because this is one of the greats. (The reproduction here is, uh, awful.) Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for that Ocean Park show. Curators?