Untitled [nude lying on her back and cradling her legs] 1955 - 1967

This is an untitled drawing of a nude, made by Richard Diebenkorn with graphite on paper. I love how Diebenkorn used line here, its scratchy and immediate. The dark hatching behind the figure really makes the lighter, more open lines of the body pop. It reminds me of process, of working through an idea. You can almost feel him circling the figure, trying to find the right marks to describe the form. I’m drawn to the way he renders the legs, how they curve and overlap. It's like a puzzle, trying to decipher the anatomy, but the looseness of the lines keeps it from feeling too clinical. It's more about the feeling of the body, the weight and the curves, than a perfect representation. That contrast of dark and light, the tension between clarity and ambiguity, is something he plays with a lot. You can see similar concerns in Matisse’s drawings, that exploration of form through simple, expressive lines, but Diebenkorn brings his own West Coast cool to it. It’s a conversation across time, each artist building on what came before.