Untitled [seated female nude with left leg over chair arm] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this seated nude with ink on paper, but when exactly, we don't know. It's this feeling of ‘not knowing’ that really draws me in; you can almost see the process, like the artist is thinking through the subject on the page. Diebenkorn really lets the ink do its thing here. Look at how the lines vary from thick to thin, dark to light. In some places, the ink pools up, creating these juicy dark accents, while in others, it's barely there, a ghost of a line. See that heavy line that defines the back of the chair, and then how it thins as it traces the model's thigh? It's like he's feeling his way around the form. The overall effect is less about perfect representation and more about a kind of searching. This kind of gestural approach reminds me of Willem de Kooning, who was also interested in the messy, unpredictable qualities of paint and line. It's a reminder that art is never really finished, but is always in a state of becoming.