Woman Seated at a Table

Richard Diebenkorn, already renowned for his abstract practice, shifted his attention to a looser representational style in the mid-1950s. “I was encumbered with style and too concerned with style. There were a good many things I wanted to say—to talk about—that a more strict style prevented…” he recalled. “Representation was a challenge I hadn’t had before.” “Woman Seated at a Table” evokes the visual language of Henri Matisse—his greatest influence—and showcases a distinctive flattening of the picture plane that would culminate in his famed “Ocean Park” series which he began working on later in 1967.