David Park (painter)

David Park
Born	March 17, 1911(1911-03-17) Boston, MA
Died	September 20, 1960(1960-09-20) Berkeley, CA
Nationality	American
Field	Painting
Training	California School of Fine Arts (CSFA), (San Francisco Art Institute)
Movement	Bay Area Figurative School
Influenced	Richard Diebenkorn, Elmer Bischoff, Paul John Wonner, Nathan Oliveira, Manuel Neri and Joan Brown

David Park (March 17, 1911 – September 20, 1960)^[1] was a painter and a pioneer of the Bay Area Figurative School of painting during the 1950s.

Biography

David Park was part of the post-World War II alumnae of the San Francisco Art Institute which was called the California School of Fine Arts (CSFA) at the time. He revived an interest in figurative art, at first experimenting with still-abstracted forms that relied on color for their impact, dynamics and warmth. Park, along with Richard Diebenkorn and Elmer Bischoff, broke away from the philosophy of painting promoted by Clyfford Still, who taught at the Institute, forming what would later be called the Bay Area Figurative Movement. Their influence may be seen in the work of later Bay Area Figurative School artists such as Paul John Wonner, Nathan Oliveira, Manuel Neri, Henry Villierme and Joan Brown.

Although these painters started out painting in what was called an objective style, deploying abstract shapes in large space, they soon migrated to using the physical world and representative subjects to experiment with shape, color, texture and temperature in their painting. Park realized that concentrating on principle and abstraction drew attention to the painter rather than the painting. He felt that it was important to focus on the present, to develop responses to nature. "I believe that we are living at a time that overemphasizes the need of newness, of furthering concepts".

David worked with figurative painting from about 1950 until about 1959 when he became ill with cancer. Usually working from memory,^[2] he initially painted what he saw: kids playing in the street, musicians, his friends, people in their houses. Toward the end of the decade he painted classical studio nudes and bathers in a monumental style. After he become too ill to work with oils, he continued working with watercolors which he produced until his early death in 1960.

He had a retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, 1988–1989.

his 'Standing Male Nude in the Shower', painted between 1955–57, sold for $1,160,000 at Sotheby’s New York on May 15, 2007.

Notes

1. ^ Art Encyclopaedia
2. ^ Armstrong 1989, p. 38.

References

• Armstrong, Richard (1989). David Park. University of California Press. ISBN 13 9780874270624, ISBN 0874270626

See also

• Bay Area Figurative Movement

Persondata
Name	Park, David
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	March 17, 1911
Place of birth	Boston, MA
Date of death	September 20, 1960
Place of death	Berkeley, CA