Untitled [seated female nude holding her elbow] 1955 - 1967

This drawing of a seated nude holding her elbow was made by Richard Diebenkorn, and it seems to have been done with charcoal. I love the way the artist has worked out the pose, with the form emerging from the dark marks. It’s so immediate, like a jazz solo. Charcoal’s a great medium. It’s immediate and raw. The marks are laid down so directly, and the texture of the paper is so apparent. The velvety blacks and greys have such a beautiful range. Look at the sharp, angled lines he’s used to suggest the drape of fabric and the deep shadows underneath the figure, and how that contrasts with the soft, smudgy lines of the body itself. This area gives the whole drawing its sense of weight, of gravity, pulling the eye down and anchoring the figure in space. Diebenkorn, like a lot of artists such as Matisse and Picasso, was interested in the figure but also in the abstraction of the picture plane. It's like he’s always asking: how can we see the world afresh? It’s a question that keeps artists going across generations.