Untitled [seated female nude resting her head on her right hand] 1955 - 1967

This untitled drawing of a seated nude, resting her head, was made by Richard Diebenkorn, using blue ink on paper. The marks are incredibly casual, like he’s just letting the ink flow, almost doodling her form onto the page. There is a real sense of searching here, of finding the figure through line, adding a line, and another line, and another. Look at the area around the figure’s right hand, resting on her cheek. It’s almost like a little scribble, a mess of marks that somehow coalesce into form. That’s what this piece is all about for me: it is in the process of becoming. It reminds me a little of Matisse, in its openness and freedom. But where Matisse is elegant and refined, Diebenkorn is raw, immediate, and direct. This isn’t the finished product, it’s a record of the artist’s thought process. And there's something really beautiful about that.