Richard Diebenkorn - Poindexter Gallery (Ocean Park) era Autographed Letter, 1968

Richard Diebenkorn - Poindexter Gallery (Ocean Park) era Autographed Letter, 1968

Poindexter Gallery Era Autographed Letter, postmarked May 12, 1968
Ink on postmarked correspondence card
Postmarked Santa Monica, California, May 12, 1968. This letter was sent to Daniel Selznick at the Connaught Hotel in London. Daniel Mayer Selznick was an American film producer and arts patron, son of the legendary Hollywood producer David O. Selznick. The elder Selznick produced "Gone With the Wind" (1939), Rebecca (1940) and numerous other landmark films of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Daniel Selznick's mother was theatre producer Irene Mayer Selznick; he was thus grandson to another film legend, Louis B. Mayer, but he also had his own success as a film executive at Universal and a Peabody-winning documentary producer. Daniel Selznick continued the family's cinematic legacy while also maintaining close ties to the art world and international cultural circles. This piece represents a rare intersection of postwar American abstraction, Hollywood lineage and transatlantic cultural exchange - written during the most significant and influential transitional period of the artist's career.
The letter reads as follows:
Dear Danny,
We're not going to Venice this summer. Haven't been there before but hope to do it in the future under quiet circumstances. Sorry you won't get to see my N.Y. show of recent works in May. Can't imagine that you would miss the Brices in London, but in the remote chance that you don't have their address, it's 14 Chelsea Embankment. Best from Phyllis and me, Dick
____
"The Brice's" mentioned by Diebenkorn references fellow abstract artist William Brice's London. address so Selznick might contact him while he is in London. William Brice is the son of Ziegfeld star Fanny Brice and "Nicky" Arnstein.

Provenance: Estate of Daniel Selznick
This letter has been elegantly framed, double-sided presentation in a museum quality white wood frame under UV plexiglass, allowing full visibility of both the handwritten letter and the postmark.
Measurements:
Framed
10.5 inches (vertical) by 12.5 inches (horizontal) by 2 inches
Letter
3.25 inches (vertical) by 5.5 inches (horizontal)
Written and postmarked from 334 Amalfi Drive, Santa Monica - the address long associated with Richard Diebenkorn's Ocean Park period, this autographed letter is dated May 12, 1968 - the day after the opening of his exhibition at the Poindexter Galery in New York (May 11-39, 1968),, The 1968 Poindexter Gallery show was a significant moment in Diebenkorn's career as it showcased early works from his now-famous Ocean Park series. This exhibition highlighted Diebenkorn's major transition back to abstraction. After a period focused on the Bay Area Figurative Movement, he returned to abstraction in 1967 following a move to the Ocean Park neighborhood of Santa Monica. The resulting works were characterized by large-scale, geometric compositions using atmospheric colors like blues, greens, and earth tones to reflect his coastal surroundings.
On May 26, 1968, John Canaday reviewed the show for the New York Times. The caption was “Richard Diebenkorn: Still Out of Step”. Canada writes, in part, “RICHARD DIEBENKORN, who is exhibiting new paintings at the Poindexter Gallery, may, for all I know, make a certain amount of noise out on the West Coast where he lives and works. But from this distance, year after year, he gives the impression of going along steadily and quietly and soundly as one of the most serious and best balanced American painters. Seriousness and steadiness are not characteristics likely to keep a man in the headlines, yet Mr. Diebenkorn has also had a satisfactory press. Some of the attention he has received has been generated by the contradictory fact of his being out of step, or, more accurately, of his not caring whether or not he keeps in step, with the parade that gets most of the publicity. He is noticeably independent of current vogues, but at the same time he has never tried to attract attention by rejecting them in spectacular fashion. Because he has never entered the race, it has often been difficult to tell whether he is a little ahead of the New York scene or hasn't caught up with it. His answer would probably be that he doesn't think of himself in relation to it.”
RICHARD DIEBENKORN BIOGRAPHY
In the late 1940s and early 50s, Richard Diebenkorn emerged as one of the few successful abstract painters in the United States outside of New York City. Living in Berkeley, California, he developed a unique and respected form of abstract expressionism at a time when the style was gaining ascendancy. In 1955, he unexpectedly switched back to representational painting, a style for which, like his abstract expressionist work, he would eventually gain recognition.

This representational style would interest Diebenkorn until 1966, when he moved to Santa Monica, California. There, he would begin the famous Ocean Park series, which edified his status as a major artist. The works are not strictly abstract or representational but are usually seen as trafficking between the two concepts. On one hand, a viewer can sense the light, color, and even organization of the Santa Monica environment in which Diebenkorn painted the series. On the other hand, the sensations remain abstract and never directly reference a particular landscape.

A monumental painting more than eight feet high, Ocean Park #90, 1976, exemplifies Diebenkorn’s highly recognized work. The painting deftly employs many of the features of the series, large washes of pale color interspersed with angular splits—sometimes considered light through a window, sometimes beach architecture, and sometimes streets. Ocean Park #90, however, is slightly more somber than many other works in the series, pushing blue into a slate gray and daylight into a palette found during a sunset of red and yellow, an evening light.