Untitled [seated woman in pleated skirt] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this intimate portrait of a seated woman with charcoal and wash on paper. The palette is moody: greys and blacks are punctuated by a periwinkle blue. I love how he gets so much with so little; such spare materials, yet so evocative. I bet Diebenkorn worked on this piece quickly, intuitively. Maybe he was thinking about Matisse, or even Vuillard, two artists who knew a thing or two about capturing the quiet moments of domestic life. Look at the raw, almost clumsy strokes that define the woman’s form, especially her legs. It’s like he's wrestling with the image, trying to pin down something essential about her presence, her mood. The way he renders the pleated skirt, with its rhythmic, repetitive lines, almost feels like an abstract pattern. He's not just depicting a woman in a room; he's playing with form, light, and shadow, pushing the boundaries between representation and abstraction. That tension, that ongoing dialogue, is what makes Diebenkorn so compelling.