They told me that the painting I was studying that I wrote about here was actually by Villierme , a student of Diebenkorn's and that it had actually been sold AS a Diebenkorn by Villierme's representative. Villierme served in the Korean war, attended California College of Arts and Crafts, studied with Diebenkorn and then switched to a career in banking. Fifty years later, he's still painting. 
California College of Arts as it was in 1953, and as it is more recently, having developed a state of the art film school.
I was directed to this blog that elaborates the corrupted sales and controversies.
Villierme was born in 1928 and his website has paintings from the 50's through 2007. How wonderful it must be to find your passion early, and be able to nurture it for such a long time. What a hunk he was in 1953!!!From Villierme's website:
In a letter regarding Henry Villierme written on February 26, 1992, Richard Diebenkorn paid high praise to his former student:
When Henry Villierme told me that he was leaving the Bay Area for Southern California – to take a job in a bank? – I was stunned and desperately disappointed. Of all the painting students at the California College of Arts and Crafts who might have abandoned his direction, Henry was one whose defection could hit me the hardest.
In the studio it was always a pleasure to confront him and his painting. He was a hard and intense worker. He was anxious for words from me and I would usually come up with some nonsense, which I would interrupt by saying “Look Henry – just keep painting.” But he usually had some questions and you could feel their extreme need for answers. There were never evasions, apologies or excuses as with some students.
I enjoyed my critiques with Henry. His work was always wet and difficult to handle, would have been through hell but would not be tortured. It would be rich and very solid and just faintly bruised and slightly bloodied – ineffaceable evidence of a desperate fight.
Henry would respond. “What fight?”
Beyond this Henry’s painting had, and still has, instinctual understanding of that universal human activity in which colors are applied to the surface. Henry’s capacity to bring a work to a final state of open, nonintrospective resolution is impressive. There is no one whom I would feel better about describing as “a real painter”.
Anyone who can bring to realization a canvas on a hilltop in a high wind as I once observed is to be profoundly respected.
Seascape 1960
Mums 2006
Hidden Valley 2007
Highway Study No. 2 1957
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