Three American artists are showing work which illustrates the creative variety and rich diversity of North American art.  Leon Golub and Richard Diebenkorn were both born in 1922, but their work could not be more different, reflecting different viewpoints of the period in which they were active, while Frank Stella’s sculpture is bang up to date and is ready to explode out of the courtyard of the Royal Academy.

Leon Golub paints a world that is raw, brutal, dark and sinister. The people and the animals in his paintings live in a desperate world full of fear and violence. By contrast, Diebenkorn’s work reflects the warmth, colour and life in the Californian sunshine.

The cool white classical rooms of the Serpentine Gallery contrast with the Golub’s powerful and dark representations of men, gods and animals fighting each other, of mercenaries, of squad rooms and interrogation scenes and of the back streets of El Salvador. The viewer is able to view the works from a distance, but also close up to see the frenetic whirling brushstrokes that heighten the tension in the work, which at times combine social commentary with mythological images such as Prometheus being savaged by an eagle.

The intensity and subject of his work is such that he has not been recognised as much as he should have been in his home country. In contrast, Richard Diebenkorn is considered one of the great post-war artists of the United States, described by the Washington Post as one of America’s “finest abstract painters”.

The exhibition at the Royal Academy covers his work from the 1950’s to the 1970’s, a period which starts with Diebenkorn’s abstract work, before moving into a more figurative style and then returning to abstraction with his famous Ocean Park series in the 1970’s.  It is his abstract work which is by far the best, with palettes of colours that perfectly reflect the Californian sky and coastline, with architecture and roads represented by blocks of colour within black lines. There is a hint of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s last paintings in the south of France in some of Diebenkorn’s less abstract work; perhaps they were both seeking the same simplicity, albeit at different times and in different places.

Outside in the Annenberg Courtyard of the Royal Academy is a new large-scale sculpture by Frank Stella, considered to be one of the most important living artists in America today.  The sculpture “Inflated Star and Wooden Star” is constructed of two contrasting elements, one in aluminium; the other in teak to create tensions between the two elements: light against solid, natural wood against highly-polished metal, straight lines against curves.  They two stars appear held together by the black metal frame as if it is a catapult which will be let loose to send the stars upwards into the sky above London.

Richard Diebenkorn photographs copyright The Richard Diebenkorn Foundation.