The Harwood Museum of Art of the University of New Mexico in Taos presents a lecture on Richard Diebenkorn by Helen Park Bigelow, daughter of artist David Park, on Thursday, Aug. 2 at 7 p.m. Diebenkorn is one of the most prominent American artists of the 20th century, widely known for his abstract expressionist paintings.
The museum also offers free guided tours of “Diebenkorn in New Mexico: 1950-1952” – an exhibit of works Diebenkorn produced while a graduate student at UNM – every Wednesday and the first Sunday of each month at 1 p.m. The exhibit will be shown through Sept. 9.
Before Diebenkorn moved to Albuquerque in 1950, he studied painting at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco, now the San Francisco Art Institute, where David Park was on of his instructors.
“After the Diebenkorns returned to the Bay Area from New Mexico, they and my parents became best friends,” Bigelow said. “I was married and living nearby, and it was during those years, the fifties, that my three children were born. I was in and out of my parent’s house, where I saw Dick and Phyllis often, and got to know them and love them and also got to know and love Dick’s works.”
“Through my father, Dick and the third player in that important friendship, the painter Elmer Bischof, those years gave us what became known as Bay Figurative Painting, and the emergence into national recognition of David, Dick and Elmer. As I observed the three young painters – Dick and Elmer in their thirties and David in his forties – their passion for work left deep impressions. For my Harwood talk I will share stories and insights from those years, with a focus on the friendship, competition and recognition the three painters shared,” she said.
Bigelow was a studio potter for many years and currently lives in Hawaii, where she is completing a memoir about her father David Park.
The lecture is free to Harwood members and UNM students, faculty and staff, or $8 for nonmembers. For more information call (505) 758-9826, ext. 105 or visit http://www.harwoodmuseum.org.
For a related story visit: Taos Harwood Exhibits ‘Diebenkorn in New Mexico’
Media Contact: Lucy Perera-Adams, (505) 758-9826, ext. 105; e-mail: lperera@aol.com