Untitled [woman resting her head in a man's lap] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this drawing of a woman resting her head in a man’s lap using ink on paper. Look at the urgent, searching quality of the marks that define the figures. It’s like he’s trying to capture a fleeting moment, not just what they look like, but how they feel. The ink is applied in these raw, almost scribbled lines, full of energy. The texture is immediate, nothing concealed, and the drawing feels vulnerable, open. See the way he renders the woman’s hair, just a mass of quick strokes, or the man’s face, a web of lines suggesting form and shadow. It’s all about the process, the act of seeing and translating that into marks on paper. Diebenkorn’s work always strikes me as being in conversation with artists like Matisse, but filtered through a more abstract, personal lens. It’s this constant push and pull between representation and abstraction that makes his art so compelling, a reminder that art is never really finished, but always evolving.