Berkeley No. 52

Berkeley No. 52 from 1955 is a work from Richard Diebenkorn's Berkeley series, the abstract paintings that established his reputation in the mid-1950s before his transition to the figurative work of the early 1960s. The Berkeley series combines the gestural abstraction of Abstract Expressionism with the landscape-based structure that would connect Diebenkorn's work to the California landscape tradition, and No. 52 demonstrates the combination of gestural freedom and structural rigor that distinguishes the series. The 1955 date places this in the middle of the Berkeley series, when Diebenkorn was producing the abstract paintings that would lead to the Ocean Park series of the late 1960s and 1970s.

Berkeley No. 52 is important in Diebenkorn's oeuvre because it demonstrates the combination of gestural abstraction and landscape-based structure that connects his Abstract Expressionist work to the California landscape tradition. The Berkeley series established Diebenkorn as a major Abstract Expressionist, but its landscape-based structure already contained the seeds of the figurative work that would follow—making the Berkeley series a pivot between Diebenkorn's abstract and figurative periods.

Berkeley No. 52 is Diebenkorn at the pivot between abstraction and figuration: gestural Abstract Expressionism with a landscape-based structure that connects his work to the California tradition. The 1955 painting from the middle of the Berkeley series shows the combination of gestural freedom and structural rigor that would lead to the Ocean Park series.