Untitled [nude resting her arms on a cushion] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this untitled nude resting her arms on a cushion, with what looks like charcoal on paper. I love how Diebenkorn uses charcoal, it’s like he’s wrestling with it, trying to pin down the form but also letting the charcoal do its own thing. The texture is all over the place. You can see the smudges and the sharp, dark lines and it makes the whole thing feel so alive. The dark lines create the shape of the body, but the smudges give it volume and shadow, like the body is emerging from the paper itself. The way the lines scratch and smudge around the face, especially around the eyes, makes the figure feel so present. Diebenkorn reminds me of Giacometti, both capturing the essence of a form with a kind of restless energy. Art is always a conversation, right? A back and forth between artists, ideas, and materials, never settled, always moving.