Untitled 1966

Seymour Lipton made this untitled drawing in 1966 with graphite on paper, and I can imagine him hunched over it, reworking the lines, trying to find the form. It’s like he’s feeling his way through a thicket of lines to find a hidden object, with all these dynamic, slashing marks. Look how the graphite clumps together, building up the darks and lights. I feel like I'm watching a sculpture slowly emerge from a block of stone. I wonder if Lipton was thinking about the cubists, like Picasso and Braque, who were also interested in breaking down objects into their component parts. This drawing reminds me that artists are always having a conversation with each other across time, riffing off each other’s ideas and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. It's cool to see how simple gestures can evoke such a powerful sense of depth and volume.