Guy Diehl is an American artist best known for still life paintings and prints, many of which incorporate direct references to historically significant artists and artworks.
Background and education
At the age of eleven Diehl moved with his family from Pittsburgh to Pleasant Hill, California In 1968 he started taking courses in the art department at Diablo Valley College and then studied under Mel Ramos, one of the originators of figurative Pop Art at Cal State University, Hayward, earning a BA in 1973. Diehl says that Ramos taught him "discipline and professionalism" and, crucially, to incorporate the camera as a tool in his painting practice. Ramos also encouraged Diehl to attend San Francisco State University for graduate work. Respected first generation photorealist painters Robert Bechtle and Richard McLean, along with photographer and painter John Gutmann, served as mentor figures for Diehl at San Francisco State as he earned a master's degree. After graduating with honors in 1976, he immediately took a position as an instructor at Diablo Valley College, teaching painting, drawing, and watercolor.
Methods and collaborations
Diehl continued painting in a style heavily influenced by his photorealist mentors for several years: a 1980 review in Artweek notes a reverence for Wayne Thiebaud in both the title of Diehl's 1980 watercolor Thiebaud Towel and the execution of his acrylic paintingGreen Deck Chair from the same year. However, the artist's approach changed after he had a self-described "epiphany" at a 1982 show of still lifes by Gordon Cook at Charles Campbell Gallery in San Francisco. Cook's work then led Diehl toward a greater appreciation of the intimate scale of the work of Italian still life painter Giorgio Morandi. These two artists have inspired Diehl's work for more than twenty-five years; Cook and Morandi, writes Landauer, "continue to serve as Diehl's guideposts." The subject matter of his paintings has remained largely consistent since the early 1980s: San Jose Museum of Art curator Susan Landauer wrote in 2007 that "for the past fifteen years, repertoire has consisted mainly of hardcover books, typically on art or other subjects... often accompanied by some related iconic element." Los Angeles Timesart critic Leah Ollman writes that Diehl "practices painting as an act of homage," citing "visual quotes" and references to artists including Morandi, Rothko, Zurbaran, Ingres, Goya, Modigliani, Demuth and Joan Brown in a 2004 review of Diehl's paintings at Schlesinger Gallery. Diehl's work also incorporates references to artists in other disciplines, including musicians such as Dave Brubeck, Thelonious Monk and Billie Holiday. When painting, Diehl works almost exclusively in acrylic on canvas or watercolor on paper. His still life compositions are painted from source photographs taken by the artist in his studio. His work has generally taken a serial form, with paintings or prints issued in a series connected by some common theme, from his 1970s images of figures in swimming pools to his more recent series of book paintings. In 2012, on the occasion of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge, Diehl and designer Michael Rylander published GGB75, a series of photographs by Diehl of the bridge as seen from across the Bay in Tiburon, California. Since 1988, Diehl has collaborated with Donald Farnsworth at Magnolia Editions in Oakland, California on a variety of print projects including lithographs, etchings, woodcuts, pigmented inkjet prints and mixed-media editions. Magnolia Editions has also published a series of editioned Jacquard tapestries by Diehl.
