by Gregg Chadwick
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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 Press in San Francisco. One morning on a walk from my Market Street loft where I lived and painted in the 1990s, I spotted Richard Diebenkorn leaning up against a BART entrance watching the cable car turnaround across Market Street. He was captivated by the movement of the conductors as they spun the car 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 at the forms moving across Powell Street. Eventually, I closed the book, walked over and thanked Richard Diebenkorn for his art and inspiration. He smiled and tears seemed to well up in his eyes, as he said “Thank you. I am glad that my work inspires you. Is your studio nearby?”
I didn’t mention the USMC connection to Diebenkorn that day in 1992, but I remembered the Evening Parade at the Marine Corps Barracks in Washington DC. I remembered the rich light of dusk on the green lawns at the barracks. The same light that was also falling on the White House in my painting. Dusk and green. Obama and Diebenkorn.
