One Seated and One Standing 1966

This brown ink drawing on paper is by Philip Pearlstein and is entitled One Seated and One Standing. You know, sometimes I look at drawings like this and I imagine the artist really going at it. It's like a dance – this back and forth between looking and marking, observing the models. I’m sure he kept changing his mind, rubbing it out, starting again. Those brown lines have a real urgency to them. There's something so matter-of-fact about the way Pearlstein depicts bodies, without any idealization. But the tone isn't cold, I feel a sense of respect, you know? I wonder if he was thinking about earlier artists like Degas, who also drew bathers, or maybe even those old master figure studies. Artists are always looking back, riffing off each other. It’s a kind of conversation, where forms appear and reappear, but change each time. It's the painter's job to open up that conversation.