Style Imitating Art: Interior with a Book by Richard Diebenkorn 

About Style Imitating Art

Style Imitating Art is hosted by Salazar of 14 Shades of Grey, Terri of MeadowTree Style, and Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge. Style Imitating Art challenges us to draw style inspiration from pieces of art. Every other Monday, one of the hosts, acting as curator, selects an inspiration image that they will each post on their blogs. The following Monday, each host shares her art inspired outfit. Participants are invited to submit their art inspired outfits to the curator by 10:00 p.m. EST on the Tuesday following the hosts’ art inspired outfit posts. The following day, Wednesday, the curator will share all of the submissions on her blog.

You don’t have to be a blogger to join! You are invited to share your images on Instagram or other social media platforms. Just be sure to tag Salazar, Terri, and Shelbee or use #TeamLOTSStyle and #StyleImitatingArt so the hosts know you have joined. Go have some fun in your closets and join the SIA challenge next week!

The Inspiration Artwork

The inspiration artwork was chosen by Terri. You can read why she picked this work here.

The Artwork

Interior with a Book by Richard Diebenkorn

About the Artist: Richard Diebenkorn

Richard Clifford Diebenkorn Jr. was an American painter and printmaker born on April 22, 1922, in Portland, Oregon. When he was 2 years old, his family moved to San Francisco, California, and by the age of 4 or 5 he began drawing continuously. In 1940, he enrolled at Stanford University where he met his first two artistic mentors, one of whom shared his passion for the works of Edward Hopper. At this time, he was also introduced to the works of Cézanne, Picasso, and Matisse while visiting the home of Gertrude Stein‘s sister-in-law, Sarah Stein.

Also during his time at Stanford, Diebenkorn met fellow student Phyllis Antoinette Gilman whom he would marry in 1943. The couple had two children together, Gretchen (born in 1945) and Christopher (born in 1947).

Before completing his degree program at Stanford, the United States became involved in World War II leading Diebenkorn to serve in the United States Marine Corps from 1943 until 1945. While enlisted, he continued studying art and also enrolled for short periods of time at universities near is various military posts. He was scheduled for a deployment to Japan in 1945, but the war ended in August of that year. Diebenkorn was discharged and returned home to the San Francisco Bay Area.

From the late 1940s into the early 1950s, Diebenkorn lived and worked all over the United States including San Francisco, Sausalito, and Berkeley, California; Woodstock, New York; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Urbana, Illinois. Taking advantage of the recently passed G.I. Bill, Diebenkorn enrolled as a fine arts graduate student at the University of New Mexico from 1950 to 1952. The following academic school year, he accepted a faculty position at the University of Illinois where he taught painting and drawing. In his first semester as a faculty member, Diebenkorn had his first solo exhibition at a commercial gallery in Los Angeles.

Diebenkorn returned to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1953 after spending the summer in New York City. In 1955, he accepted a teaching position at the California College of Arts and Crafts where he taught until 1958. At this time, he also established his home in Berkeley where he lived until 1966. During this period, interiors, landscapes, still lifes, and the human figure dominated Diebenkorn’s subject matter and he began to experience a decent level of success. In the early 1960s, he became interested in printmaking, publishing his first book of prints, 41 Etchings Drypoints, in 1965.

In 1966, after half a year’s travel through Europe, Diebenkorn accepted a professorship at UCLA and moved to a small studio space in Santa Monica, California. He retired from UCLA in 1973 and decided to leave Southern California in 1986, finally settling in Sonoma County in 1988. By 1989, he was suffering from continual health complications due to heart disease. He died from emphysema complications in Berkeley, California, on March 30, 1993, at the age of 70.

About the Art: Interior with a Book

Interior with a Book is a 1959 oil on canvas produced during the period when interiors were a prominent focus in Diebenkorn’s subject matter. It is rather large painting, measuring 5 feet 10 inches x 5 feet 4 inches (177.8 x 162.56 cm). The Friends of Art gifted this work to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, where it is currently on exhibit. The gallery label describes the work as such…

“Richard Diebenkorn worked in two styles-gestural realism, as in Interior with a Book, and complete abstraction, as in the Ocean Park Series.

In Interior with a Book, Diebenkorn integrates flat areas of color with more realistic passages suggesting three-dimensional space. The right two-thirds of the canvas present a landscape, sky and interior space in terms of an abstract pattern of horizontal bands of color. Perspective, or the illusion of receding space, is achieved through the intersection of these horizontals with the diagonal lines of the window frame. The careful placement of a chair, book and trees enhances this illusion of depth.

The empty chair and open book suggest the absence or eventual presence of a solitary figure, creating a mood of quiet anticipation.”

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

Resources/References:

• Richard Diebenkorn: Wikipedia
• Interior with a Book: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

About My Outfit

At first glance of the painting, I was initially stumped. But it only took a few moments of really looking at the artwork for this very old green tie dye wrap skirt to come to mind. The colors and the tie dye pattern are spot on for the green landscape near the top of the painting. To represent the blue sky, I layered a pale blue tank top under my blue tie dye button down which always reminds me of a cloudy sky. Keeping with my summer hippie boho cowgirl vibe, I decided to wear my black cowgirl boots to represent the black chair in the artwork. I added a black stretchy belt with a brown tortoise shell buckle to pull in some browns but you can’t even tell it’s brown in the photos. Oh well. The bench in the background of the above photo is a way better shade of brown anyway.

I finished off the outfit with a straw hat trimmed in green, a green sea glass necklace, thrifted blue earrings, my colorful summer straw bag because it is the one I have been carrying, and of course, I had to bring in a book. I am currently reading Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice for the two or three dozenth time.

Before I go, I want to share a bit about this very old skirt. I have another one in black and green tie dye. Honestly, I don’t love wrap skirts in general and I really don’t like this length in a wrap skirt. But I purchased both skirts over 20 years ago from one of my favorite clothing boutiques. It was an adorable little shop called Middle Eastern Gifts, owned by the loveliest couple who moved here from India, and it was located within walking distance of my first post-divorce apartment in Montclair, New Jersey.

When I had some free time, I loved to walk around the downtown area for lunch and shopping and I never failed to visit Middle Eastern Gifts on these excursions. The couple who owned the shop are about 20 years older than me (so my age now) and they absolutely loved me. I like to think that was because I have good energy but their love for me more likely stemmed from my love for spending a lot of money in their shop! I still have many of the items purchased from them because I just can’t seem to get rid of them. Perhaps because the garments themselves are infused with really good energy. Unfortunately, Middle Eastern Gifts did not survive Covid-19 shutdowns and it was closed a few years ago after many successful decades in business. That makes me super sad but also very grateful that I decided to hold onto these pieces all of these years, like this skirt, this scarf (actually all of the scarves that are now my living room curtains), and this necklace.

By the way, I fell off that rock when I first sat on it. It was deceptively uneven and I lost my balance and tipped right off the side. Jeff was laughing so hard, he failed to capture video evidence.

How did I do with this challenge? These are wardrobe items that I never would have independently thought to wear together, but I absolutely loved this outfit for a casual summer day. That is one of my favorite things about allowing the art to lead me!

If you enjoyed my sartorial interpretation of this artwork, be sure to also check out Terri’s interpretation of the artwork as well as Salazar’s take on it. If you would like to participate in this challenge and have your photo included in Terri’s round up post on Wednesday, August 16, 2023, be sure to email your photos to her at meadowtreestyle@gmail.com by 10:00 p.m. EST on Tuesday, August 15, 2023. I look forward to seeing your creative art-inspired styles.

Keeping it on the edge,

Shelbee

Linking up with these Fabulous Link Parties.

Outfit Details: Shirt and Belt-Torrid / Tank Top-Target / Skirt-Middle Eastern Gifts / Boots-Durango / Hat-Wona Trading / Earrings-Thrifted / Necklace-Craft Market / Bag-Burlington Coat Factory