Untitled [reclining female nude with crossed legs] [recto] 1955 - 1967

Editor: This is an untitled charcoal drawing by Richard Diebenkorn, made sometime between 1955 and 1967. It depicts a reclining female nude. The lines feel so raw and immediate to me. What strikes you when you look at this piece? Curator: I see a powerful commentary on the male gaze, even though it’s a male artist creating the work. Consider the mid-20th century context: Diebenkorn painted many female nudes during his career. This drawing, created in a period marked by both traditional expectations of women and emerging feminist voices, allows us to question how women are represented and who gets to do the representing. Does the somewhat detached expression on the model's face, contrasted with the suggestive pose, speak to those tensions? Editor: That’s a perspective I hadn't considered. I was mainly focused on the technique, the sketch-like quality. Curator: And that’s perfectly valid! But think about this looseness in relation to the societal constraints placed on women at the time. The "unfinished" quality, the raw lines – could that be read as resisting the highly polished, often unrealistic, portrayals of women in art history and popular culture? It rejects that idealization, in a way. Editor: So you’re suggesting the artist might be making a statement about the objectification of women, even subconsciously, through his artistic choices? Curator: Exactly! The act of sketching itself is intimate, yet there’s a certain distance maintained here. It’s about examining those contradictions, prompting dialogue about the power dynamics at play between artist and model, and ultimately, between representation and reality. Editor: That gives me a lot to think about. I see the drawing with new eyes now, thinking about not just what's shown but also the history behind its making and the gaze that produced it. Curator: Precisely, and hopefully this encourages us to continue challenging the conventional narratives we see and unpack the complexities behind artistic representations.