Artist Rooms

The fascinating career of Richard Diebenkorn, one of the great twentieth-century masters of American painting.

Diebenkorn is rightly regarded as one of the most significant artists in post-war America.
For those new to Diebenkorn, here are seven key facts to kick-start your appreciation of a unique talent.

When Barack Obama moved into the White House in 2009, he selected for his living quarters a large, brightly coloured abstract painting by Richard Diebenkorn.

The Three Ages of Woman, 1905 by Gustav Klimt

The painting show a little girl in the protecting arms of a young woman, while beside them an old woman stands with bowed head.
The aged crone is symbolic of the passage of time.

The figure of the old woman is based on a sculpture by Auguste rodin (1840 - 1917), called The Old Courtesan also known as 'She who was once the Helmet-Maker's Beautiful Wife', which was exhibited in Vienna in 1901 as part of the ninth Secession exhibition.

 

The Swimmer in the Econo-mist #3, 1997–98

Seen as a whole, the swirling images hurtle across the large canvases.
They move from black-and-white to vivid color, from abstraction to glimpses of realism, and from the mundane to the extraterrestrial, finally coming to a halt in The Swimmer in the Econo-mist #3.
Here, the sun rises in the red, yellow, and black colors of the German flag.

​

Major Pop artist James Rosenquist used sign-painting techniques to make kaleidoscopic canvases that conjure American advertising.

TURBINE. HYMN TO HESTIA., 2024

​

Sterling Ruby reveals new work at Gagosian, including four paintings in his “TURBINE” series (2021–) and a selection of collages from “DRFTRS” (2012–).
Evoking speed and self-destruction, Ruby saturates his “TURBINE” paintings in colour, pounding pigment into their surface and arranging them on his studio floor to be subjected to frenzied motion.

Sterling Ruby’s work engages with issues related to autobiography, art history, and the violence and pressures within society.
 

​

​

​

​

Quirk my mannerism, 2021

​

Exploring a complex emotional landscape, Jadé Fadojutimi's paintings offer an insight into the artist's quest for identity and self-knowledge.

For Fadojutimi, painting is like looking into a windowpane and seeing the reflection of her self, the context in which she lives, and the distorted fusion of these two.

Using the canvas as a sounding board, she grapples with memories of everyday experiences, both good and bad.

​

​

​

​

​

​

Albert Oehlen, Mirage of Steel, 2003

​

Albert Oehlen relishes the sensitivity of his medium in this celebration of painterly illusion: puddles and washes convey a refracted, dreamlike sensibility, while almost recognisable objects emerge and dissolve against the fluid ground.
An explicit confession of deception, Albert Oehlen creates a convincing sense of space: a purely abstract fabrication boldly exposing its own construction.

​

Albert Oehlen, who emerged in the 1980s as part of the loose cohort of avant-garde German artists known as Neue Wilde, pushes painting into eclectic new realms.