The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 19, 2025

Blue

1984

Richard Diebenkorn

(American, 1922–1993)
America
color woodcut
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.)
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1998.111
© The Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
Catalogue raisonné: Nordland 22
Location: Not on view

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.
  • Cleveland Museum of Art, “Cleveland Acquires Major New Sculpture, Rare Chinese Prints, Contemporary Prints, Drawings & Photographs,” October 30, 1998, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives. archive.org
    Richard Diebenkorn: The Catalogue Raisonne of Prints, edited by Andrea Liguori. New Haven, London: Yale University Press: in association with Richard Diebenkorn Foundation, 2025. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 303, no. 289, vol. 2
  • Against the Grain: Woodcuts from the Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 17-November 9, 2003).
    From Rembrandt to Rauschenberg: Recently Acquired Prints. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 17-November 26, 2000).
  • {{cite web|title=Blue|url=false|author=Richard Diebenkorn|year=1984|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1998.111