Untitled [reclining nude with her arms above her head] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this untitled drawing of a reclining nude with ink on paper. The image is made up of swift, assured strokes, giving the impression of a body captured in a fleeting moment. It makes me think about what Diebenkorn was looking for with his line. There’s an ongoing conversation between artists across time, and I wonder if he was thinking about Matisse when he made this. The thick, dark lines have a real graphic punch, but they also feel kind of tentative in the way they describe the form, like he’s searching. You can feel the weight of the body, but there’s also something very flat and abstract about the drawing. The lines don't just describe what he saw, they express something about the experience of seeing. It's like he's saying that how we see is as important as what we see. The line itself becomes the subject.