Untitled [seated female nude with left foot on stand] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this drawing of a seated nude with ink on paper. Look at these lines! Some are quick and dark, others are light, tentative, searching. I imagine Diebenkorn, like a jazz musician, improvising with marks, trying to capture the essence of the figure before him, a dance between seeing and feeling. The woman's pose is relaxed, but there’s a tension, too, in the way the lines don’t quite meet, leaving gaps and openings. The medium feels immediate, the hand so visible, so close, it's like he's working it out on the page. You can see him thinking. Diebenkorn's figure drawings remind me of Matisse, both artists using line to suggest form and space with deceptive simplicity. I find it really interesting how they are both in a conversation, you know, echoing and responding to one another across time. And it shows, again, how painting is never really about answers, it's about the questions we ask along the way.