Photographed by Scott Wolff. Image scanned from a slide. Color corrected by Pat Cagney.

Coffee

Artist Richard Diebenkorn (American, 1922 - 1993)

CultureAmerican

Date1956

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsOverall: 67 x 58 3/4 in. (170.2 x 149.2 cm)

InscribedInitialed and dated lower right: RD 56

Credit LineGift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.

Object number71.2003

On View

Chrysler Museum of Art, Gallery 223

DescriptionThis is an oil on canvas painting. In the foreground is a man at a café/diner. He sits alone at a table, stirring a cup of coffee. The table is covered with a white tablecloth, which has blue and purple tints in it. There are no details on his face. His eyes are dark green shadows. The shadows under his nose and lip are also green. At his right elbow there is a green rectangle, possibly the top of a chair. There are chairs on his left (right side of the canvas). The upper portion of the background is red with two bright yellow spots in the upper right corner; this is possibly car headlights shining through the window. The colors divide the painting: red fills the top third on the canvas, black fills the space behind the man, and the white from the tablecloth creates the foreground.

Label TextRichard Diebenkorn American, 1922–1993 Coffee, 1956 Oil on canvas A forceful quality in art, truly representative of our modern situation, will rise above the labels of abstraction and realism. –Richard Diebenkorn A man sits alone in a café stirring his coffee as if lost in thought. But the figure is only one of the painting’s subjects. The other is the carefully balanced and richly colored shapes on the canvas surface and the striking effects of the light falling on the figure from the electric bulbs above. Together, Richard Diebenkorn’s subjects push beyond the limits of both representation and abstraction. They depict a moment when everyday details give rise to extraordinary insights. Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. 71.2003 ProvenanceThe artist; Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.; Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. to the Chrysler Museum, 1971. Exhibition History"Twenty Paintings and Drawings by Twenty Living American Artists," Selected by Vincent Price, Alan Gallery, New York, N.Y., 1957. "Contemporary Bay Area Figurative Painting," Oakland Art Museum, Oakland, Calif., September 1957; Dayton Art Institute, January 1958; and other museums. "Three Hundred Years of American Art in the Chrysler Museum," Chrysler Museum at Norfolk, Va., March 1 - July 4, 1976. "American Figure Painting: 1950-1980," The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Va., October 16 - November 30, 1980. (Exh. cat. p. 16) "Bay Area Figurative Art: 1950-1965," San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Calif., December 14, 1989 - February 4, 1990; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., June 13 - September 9, 1990; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pa., October 5 - December 30, 1990. (Exh. cat. fig. 2.18) "Remix Redux: A Fresh Mix For Our Modern And Contemporary Galleries," Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia, August 15 - December 30, 2012.Published ReferencesPaul Mills, _Contemporary Bay Area Figurative Painting: An Introduction to New Works by a Number of Bay Area Painters_, exh. cat., Oakland Art Museum, Alameda, Calif., 1957. Herschel B. Chipp, "Diebenkorn Paints a Picture," _ARTNews_ 56, no. 3 (May 1957): 44-55. Peter Selz, _New Images of Man_ (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1959), 55-57. Dennis R. Anderson, _Three Hundred Years of American Art in the Chrysler Museum_, exh. cat., Norfolk, Va., 1975, 237. Thomas W. Styron, "American Figure Painting," _The Chrysler Museum Bulletin_ 10, no. 10 (October 1980): not paged. Thomas Wayne Stryon, _American Figure Painting, 1950-1980_, exh. cat., The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Va., 1980, 16, 111. _The Chrysler Museum: Selections from the Permanent Collection, Norfolk, Virginia_ (Norfolk: Chrysler Museum, 1982), 107. ISBN: 0940744376 John Gruen, "Richard Diebenkorn: The Idea is to Get Everything Right," _ARTNews_ (November 1986): 80-87. Caroline A. Jones, _Bay Area Figurative Art: 1950-1965_, exh. cat., San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Berkeley, Calif., 1990, 33-35. ISBN: 0520068416, 0520068424 Jefferson C. Harrison, _The Chrysler Museum Handbook of the European and American Collections: Selected Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings_ (Norfolk: The Chrysler Museum, 1991), 189, plate 143. ISBN: 0940744597, 0940744627 Martha N. Hagood and Jefferson C. Harrison, _American Art at the Chrysler Museum: Selected Paintings, Sculpture, and Drawings_ (Norfolk, Va.: Chrysler Museum of Art, 2005), 208-209, no. 129. ISBN: 0-940744-71-6 Terry Ward Libby, _Masterpieces: A Celebration of Food and Art in Virginia_ (Richmond, VA: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 2005), 36, 147. ISBN: 0-917046-79-X Jeff Harrison, _Collecting with Vision: Treasures From the Chrysler Museum of Art_ (London: D. Giles Ltd., 2007), 78, fig. 89. ISBN: 978-0-940744-72-1