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Yellow Lampshade

1969

The pioneering Bay Area Figurative artist Elmer Bischoff consistently explored the tensions between abstraction and representation in his work, remarking, “My aim has been to have the paint in the canvas play a double role—one as an alive, sensual thing in itself, and the other conveying a response to the subject. Between the two is this tightrope.”

Beginning in 1950, Bischoff participated in weekly drawing sessions from a model with David Park and Richard Diebenkorn, and two years later he shifted from his earlier Abstract Expressionist style to painting in a figurative mode. Recalling the psychological intensity and ambiguity of scenes by Edward Hopper, "Yellow Lampshade" features a faceless man and woman in a light-filled, richly textured, and sparsely furnished interior space—their forms silhouetted against a looming gray city skyline.

Artist: Elmer Bischoff (American, 1916–1991)
Title: Yellow Lampshade
Date: 1969
Place of Creation: San Francisco
Object Type: Painting
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 70 x 80 in. (177.8 x 203.2 cm)
Credit Line: Museum purchase, gift of Nan Tucker McEvoy in memory of her mother, Phyllis de Young Tucker
Accession Number: 1992.10

[Charles Campbell Gallery, San Francisco, 1969–1977];
[Tortue Gallery, Los Angeles, 1977];
Purchased by The Capital Group, Inc., Los Angeles, November 1977–May 1985;
Transferred to The Capital Group Foundation, Los Angeles, 1985–December 1991;
[Campbell-Thiebaud Gallery, San Francisco, December 1991–1992];
Gift of Nan McEvoy Tucker to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1992.
New York, Staempfli Gallery, December 9, 1969–January 10, 1970, "Elmer Bischoff," cat. text by George W. Staempfli, repr. back cover (color), as Yellow Lampshade.
Oakland, California, The Oakland Museum, October 14–December 14, 1975, "Elmer Bischoff: Figurative Paintings, 1957–1972," cat. text by Terry St. John, cat. no. 21, repr. p. 21, lent by Staempfli Gallery, New York.
Claremont, California, Galleries of the Claremont Graduate School, October 19–28, 1982, "The Corporate Eye: A Capital Idea."
Los Angeles, Security Pacific National Bank Gallery at the Plaza, September 23–December 1, 1985, "California Paintings and Sculpture from the Collection of the Capital Group."
Laguna, California, Laguna Art Museum, November 20, 1986–January 4, 1987; San Francisco, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, December 5, 1985–February 9, 1986; Greenville, South Carolina, Greenville County Museum of Art, July 8–August 31, 1986; Washington, DC, The Phillips Collection, September 20–November 2, 1986. "Elmer Bischoff, 1947–1985," cat. text by Robert M. Frash, cat. no. 44, repr. cover, frontispiece (color), lent by The Capital Group Foundation, Los Angeles.
San Francisco, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (M. H. de Young Memorial Museum), March 4–May 14, 2000, "Picturing San Francisco, 1850–2000," exh. brochure by Dakin Hart, checklist no. 39, repr. (color).
Oakland, Oakland Museum of California, October 31, 2001–January 3, 2002; Newport Beach, California, Orange County Museum of Art, February 5.–June 2, 2002; West Palm Beach, Florida, Norton Museum of Art, October 17, 2002–January 5, 2003. "Elmer Bischoff: the Ethics of Paint," exh. cat. by Susan Landauer, with introduction by Bill Berkson, no cat. nos., p. 133, repr. p. 134, fig. 121 (color).
New York Times, 13 Dec. 1969 [1]"Elmer Bischoff: Recent Paintings and Drawings," gallery pamphlet, (New York: Stæmpfli, 1970), repr. color back cover.
F[enton], J[ohn], "Elmer Bischoff at Staempfli," Arts Magazine 44, no. 4 (February 1970), p. 68.
Albright, Thomas, "Elmer Bischoff: Bay Area Figurative," Currânt 1, no. 5 (December 1975–January 1976), repr. p. 39.Elmer Bischoff, Figurative paintings 1957–1972, exh. cat., (Oakland, California: The Oakland Museum, 1975), p. 31, cat. no. 21,
Albright, Thomas, "A Figurative Explosion," San Francisco Chronicle, October 29, 1975.Frash, Robert M., Elmer Bischoff, 1947–1985, exh. cat. (Laguna Beach, California: Laguna Art Museum, 1985), p. 66, cat. no 44, repr. on colophon page.
Cartwright, Derrick, "Recent Acquisition: Yellow Lampshade by Elmer Bischoff," Triptych, no. 63 (Oct./Nov./Dec. 1992), pp. 24, 25, repr. color 24.Acquisition Priority: Collecting 20th-Century American Art at the de Young Museum, (San Francisco: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1994), fig. no. 6, repr. color., repr. "Picturing San Francisco 1850–2000," exhibition pamphlet, (San Francisco: The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 2000), cat. no. 39, repr. color. Kahn, Brady, "Light and Accident, Grand Lyricist: The Art of Elmer Bischoff," East Bay Express, November 21, 2001.
Chappell, Alexandra, ed., City by the Bay: San Francisco in Art and Literature, (New York: Universe Publishing and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2002), repr. color p. 65.Landauer, Susan, Elmer Bischoff: The Ethics of Paint, exh. cat., (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 2002), p. 133, fig. 12, p. 134, repr.
Burgard, Timothy Anglin, Daniell Cornell, Isabel Breskin, et al., Masterworks of American Painting at the de Young, (San Francisco: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 2005), cat. no. 114, pp. 458–460, 557–558, repr. 459, pl. 114 (color).
[1] Review of show at Staempfli, 47 East 77th Street, NY.

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