Artwork Page for Blue

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Details / Information for Blue

Blue

1984

Richard Diebenkorn

(American, 1922–1993)
Culture
America
Medium
color woodcut
Support
Wove paper
Measurements
Sheet: 108.1 x 67.8 cm (42 9/16 x 26 11/16 in.); Image: 102.6 x 62.9 cm (40 3/8 x 24 3/4 in.)
Credit Line
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1998.111
Catalogue raisonné
Nordland 22
Copyright
© The Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
This artwork is known to be under copyright.
Location
Not on view
Print

Description

After moving to southern California and setting up a studio in a section of Santa Monica called Ocean Park, Diebenkorn concentrated on a series inspired by his new locale. Although the works may allude to landscape, the artist's main concern was with the formal elements of pictorial composition: color, drawing, surface, and suggested light and space. Blue is built on an underlying vertical and horizontal structure, but its strict geometry is softened by the irregular bright yellow strip at the right edge of the sheet and by the pentimenti (or changes) that document the artist's process of correcting and reworking the image. Blue was the result of a new printmaking venture in a Japanese studio, where American artists could make woodblock prints. Diebenkorn worked there with Japanese craftsmen who helped translate his drawing into the woodblock medium. Their incredible skill made it possible to achieve this print's rich dense layers of sensual color.
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Blue

1984

Richard Diebenkorn

(American, 1922–1993)
America

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