The Drawing Group from Modern Art West

This group of artists including Richard Diebenkorn, Elmer Bischoff, David Park and Joan Brown would gather in Diebenkorn’s Berkeley studio to draw from live models. These artists were among a daring handful rejecting abstraction for something more universal in their minds – the human condition. In 1955, when Park began teaching at UC Berkeley with Diebenkorn, painting outside of the New York scene was considered provincial. Regardless, this circle of painters along with James Weeks, Paul Wonner, Theophilus Brown and Nathan Oliveira focused on mastering the human form by repeatedly drawing models in various poses, and experimenting with both traditional and alternative materials.