Untitled [seated female nude in stockings with crossed legs] 1955 - 1967

Curator: Well, look at this drawing! It's listed as "Untitled [seated female nude in stockings with crossed legs]" by Richard Diebenkorn, likely created sometime between 1955 and 1967. Done with ink, of course. What’s your first reaction to it? Editor: Energy. Raw, unadulterated energy. The black ink practically leaps off the page. It feels unfinished, almost reckless, yet it possesses a captivating tension. You can sense the artist grappling with form and expression. Curator: Precisely! It's that rawness, the directness of the mark-making that is so captivating. During this period, Diebenkorn was navigating the spaces between abstract expressionism and representational figuration. Think about what the shift from pure abstraction meant in a post-war America that was attempting to reconstruct a collective narrative and identity. The female form became this loaded symbol. Editor: So the nude becomes less about pure aesthetics, but also how it engages ideas surrounding cultural anxieties and even gendered power dynamics of the time. I appreciate that even as it is expressive and immediate, he makes choices regarding attire, particularly with her wearing stockings which gives me pause. It suggests the gaze. Curator: Absolutely, it places the nude within the realm of lived experience, hinting at an intimacy tinged with the everyday. The modernity of the image really shines here, doesn't it? The way the brushstrokes dance around the body, building form without explicitly defining it. Editor: It’s a refusal to be pinned down to conventional representation, but that boldness makes it so enduring. What is interesting here is that the use of such high contrast suggests not only confidence but even tension around this kind of art making within art spaces during that period. Curator: It does feel a bit confrontational in its openness. But it also suggests an interiority, a self-possession that disrupts any easy readings of objectification. It is an intense study that lingers in your thoughts long after you look away. Editor: Yes, a powerful piece that defies easy categorization. Makes me think a little bit more expansively about ink as a mode too!