Untitled [seated figure] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this untitled drawing of a seated figure, using a confident black line to describe a body in repose. Just imagine him, quickly and assuredly capturing the essence of the sitter. It's like he’s thinking through the line itself. There's a kind of vulnerability in leaving the line so exposed, so unadorned. It reminds me a little of Matisse, but with a distinctly American bluntness, a directness. I wonder what she was thinking, sitting there. And what was he thinking? Was there a quiet exchange between them, or just the scratching of pen on paper filling the room? Painters, we’re all just scribbling away, trying to figure out what it means to be human, one line, one brushstroke at a time. And in that process, we find each other, across time, across space, in the shared act of making.