Speed of Life

  by Gregg Chadwick Gregg Chadwick A Walk With Obama 30"x22"gouache on monotype on paper 2022 When in high school, I would often visit the Phillips Collection in Washington DC. I felt at home in DC. We were in NOVA because my dad was stationed at Headquarters Marine Corps in Arlington, Virginia.  During World War II, artist Richard Diebenkorn also served in the Marine Corps. From 1943 until 1945, he was stationed at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia. During that time, Diebenkorn often visited the Phillips Collection in Washington DC.  I went to art school at UCLA as an undergraduate, searching for the spirit of Diebenkorn who had taught there in the 1960s. I didn’t meet Diebenkorn at UCLA, but I did eventually move to San Francisco after graduate school at NYU — perhaps in an artistic search for clues left by the Bay Area Figurative movement that Diebenkorn helped engender. As his health failed, Diebenkorn painted less but continued to create etchings at Crown Point ...

by Gregg Chadwick Gregg Chadwick The Late Afternoon of Time - San Francisco 24"x20" oil on linen 2018 Cities, like people, grow and change.  In this spirit, San Francisco  continues to inform my paintings. Last weekend, at a friend's birthday gathering in Culver City, I recounted how  o ne morning, when I lived in San Francisco, I spotted the artist Richard Diebenkorn   leaning up against a BART entrance watching the cable car turnaround across Market Street. Diebenkorn was captivated by the movement of the conductors as they spun the cars around on a giant wooden turntable. I stopped, leaned up against a wall, and flipped through art writer Robert Hughes' book Nothing If Not Critical until I reached his essay on Diebenkorn. I read slowly, pausing often to gaze up at Diebenkorn as he gazed towards Powell Street.   Eventually, I closed the book, walked over and thanked Richard Diebenkorn for his art and inspiration. He smiled and tears seemed to we...

by Gregg Chadwick Richard Diebenkorn   July  58.5" x 53.75" oil on canvas 1957 Private Collection  "So distinctive are the pentimenti in Diebenkorn's art that each painting carries within itself the visible history of the artist's search." - Arthur C. Danto Outside my window, fireworks are streaking across the evening sky. A group of young adults are gathered down below. Lightly boisterous after a day in the sun, checking their phones for the next event. "Don't get too close", they say as they light a small firework in the park across the street. The group runs. The miniature explosive was a dud. Smiles and backslaps as they walk down the street. Further in the distance a dull thump echoes down the way as a firework lifts off - exploding at its apogee. In the rolling Santa Monica fog, the explosion is now a muted glow on the horizon. When I was a kid, my family would drive to the local July 4th events. I remember when ...

  by Gregg Chadwick Richard Diebenkorn July 58.5" x 53.75" oil on canvas 1957 Private Collection Outside my window, fireworks are streaking across the evening sky. A group of young adults are gathered down below. Lightly boisterous after a day in the sun, checking their phones for the next event. "Don't get too close", they say as they light a small firework in the park across the street. The group runs. The miniature explosive was a dud. Smiles and backslaps as they walk down the street. Further in the distance a dull thump echoes down the way as a firework lifts off - exploding at its apogee. In the rolling Santa Monica fog, the explosion is now a muted glow on the horizon. When I was a kid, my family would drive to the local July 4th events. I remember when I was in High School watching the bicentennial festivities in 1976 from the Marine Corps headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. I gazed across the Potomac towards Washington DC at the F...