Richard Diebenkorn
Irving Blum Gallery
I am prejudiced in favor of painting because it is the worst thing to do nowadays, limited and overburdened by its own rich, codified language, and because it is rarely done well. A painter like Richard Diebenkorn is especially vulnerable because he’s so Beaux-arts: brushy surfaces, charcoal lines showing through fleshy, “natural” colors indigenous to oil paint, and the “rightness” of his configurations. But Diebenkorn’s show at Irving Blum; albeit nostalgic and thin in spots, is quite good, compare it to whatever you wish. The look of the whole thing is nice: quiet, airy, serene paintings in