Untitled [two standing female nudes] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn created this drawing of two standing female nudes, using charcoal. You can almost feel the artist circling and hovering, searching for the form by applying marks of tone and shade. I imagine Diebenkorn thinking hard about the relationship between what he saw and what he felt. The black area between the nudes feels forceful and deliberate. It is not about negative space or what is missing. It’s about a void or a tension between the two figures. There is an honesty to the figures which comes through the artist’s approach to the materiality of the charcoal, with layered smudges which build areas of shade, and confident lines to define the figures. I think of other artists such as Willem de Kooning, who sought new ideas about representing the figure, to evoke not just a likeness, but their own way of seeing. The artist's hand—this embodied expression—invites us to make our own interpretations.