Untitled [detail of a model resting her hand on her knee] [recto] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this drawing with crayon and charcoal on paper, capturing a model at rest, maybe during a break in the studio. The bold black lines define the figure, but then there's this ghost-like echo, a faded blue presence in the background. I wonder if that's the under-drawing, the initial sketch that he then built upon? You can imagine Diebenkorn working and reworking the image, searching for the right line, the perfect form. It's like he's trying to trap something slippery, something alive on the page. And those lines, they're so confident and direct, yet they leave so much unsaid. What was it like to be Diebenkorn in that moment? I bet he was trying to conjure up not just a body, but a feeling, a mood, an atmosphere. You get that same sense of space and light and air in his paintings. It’s all connected. We are all connected.