Study for "Fountainhead" 1958

Seymour Lipton made this study for "Fountainhead" with graphite on paper in 1958, a black and white image full of swirling gestures and hatched areas of tone. I love the way Lipton coaxes the image into being with these marks, I can almost hear the scratch of the graphite on the paper! Imagine him working and reworking the forms, trying to resolve them into some kind of… what? An idea? A figure? It's hard to tell what it is, but the pressure of the marks and the way they build up to create shadow suggests a real weight, a physicality. There’s an energy in these bold, looping lines that reminds me of other sculptors' drawings, like Henry Moore. The piece sits on a plinth, so we are clearly looking at a sculpture, even though it remains elusive. This act of drawing, so immediate and direct, brings us into the artist’s process in an intimate way. It’s not just about seeing the final form, but about witnessing the struggle and the search.