he became ill with cancer. Usually working from memory, he initially painted what he saw: kids playing in the street, musicians, his friends, people in their houses. Toward the end of the decade he painted classical studio nudes and bathers in a monumental style. After he became too ill to work with oils, he continued working with watercolors which he produced until his early death in 1960, at the age of 49, of cancer. Park was working at the University of California as an Associate Professor of Art up until he died. He was painting his best works in the final years of his life and career. Legacy In 1988, Park received a retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. Another Park retrospective was held from 2020–2021 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Park's Standing Male Nude in the Shower, painted between 1955 and 1957, sold for $1,160,000 at Sotheby's New York on May 15, 2007. Notes References Armstrong, Richard (1989). David Park. University of California Press. , American abstract artists Abstract expressionist artists American Expressionist painters American Figurative Expressionism Modern painters 1911 births 1960 deaths Artists from the San Francisco Bay Area Artists from Boston Deaths from cancer in California Painters from California Painters from Massachusetts San Francisco Art Institute alumni 20th-century American painters American male painters Loomis Chaffee School alumni 20th-century American male artists