With David Park's too early demise, Deibenkorn should have become the Bay Area Figurative group's leader. But like Groucho Marx, he did not want to be a member of any group that would have him even if it was a counter movement to the AbEx painters in ascendance on the East Coast.

So James Weeks (yesterday's post) and those that followed were not as visible nationally but they still were important locally. Paul Wonner was one of these so called 'bridge movement' painters.

Wonner was looser, and more free. In fact he left the Bay Area and moved to Davis, to teach. This painting from 1960 Two Men at the Shore, part of the Lobell Family Collection, depicts Paul Wonner and Theophilus Brown(another member of the 'bridge' group) who were in a committed relationship--but maybe this was the reason for the Davis move. It still was not easy to come out as gay in 1960.

I love the acid yellow of this painting. The men have faces, but they are not recognizable, perhaps due to the need for discretion. There are both Parkian and Diebenkornian echoes.

The "narrative richness, psychological nuance and sheer ambiguity of Wonner's figurative works were unmatched" * When Wonner moved to LA, his break with Bay Area Figurative was complete. By then Diebenkorn was in Santa Monica and the Bay Area movement's thrust has dissipated.

*In all posts this week I have been helped by Caroline Jones’s 1989 tome on the group for the SF MoMA exhibition that then traveled east to DC and Philadelphia. Taken with Janet Bishop's excellent catalog for her 2020 David Park show, any reader who wants more info than my scant posts need only see these two volumes. Upcoming: Bishop's show on Joan Brown (a peek into her work tomorrow).