Woman at a Table c. 1945

Franz Kline made this drawing of a woman at a table with ink on paper. It’s all about gesture – the quick, confident strokes that define the figure. Kline’s marks have this incredible energy. Look how he uses the ink to suggest volume and space, but also to flatten everything into an abstract arrangement. See that dark, almost scribbled area around the woman's head? It’s like he’s wrestling with the form, trying to pin it down, but also letting it dissolve into pure mark-making. I love the ambiguity here. It’s representational, sure, but it’s also about the sheer physicality of the ink on paper. In this drawing, Kline reminds me a bit of Cy Twombly, who also had this amazing ability to make marks that were both descriptive and totally abstract. It's a beautiful reminder that art is always a conversation, a back-and-forth between seeing and feeling, representation and abstraction.