Untitled [draped model seated with right foot in chair seat] 1955 - 1967

This drawing of a draped model was made by Richard Diebenkorn, using what looks like graphite, on paper. Diebenkorn's lines here are searching, tentative, and beautifully vulnerable. It's like we're seeing him think through the form, correct it, and find it again. Look at the way the lines defining the model’s leg sort of peter out, then reappear, suggesting a volume that's both there and not there. This kind of back-and-forth, this "maybe-yes, maybe-no" feeling, is so central to drawing as a process. It’s not about capturing something perfectly, but about engaging in a dialogue with the subject, where the drawing itself becomes a record of that exchange. Diebenkorn reminds me a little of Matisse, both of them so good at capturing not just the appearance of things, but the feeling of being alive, of seeing and being seen. It's this embrace of ambiguity, this willingness to let the artwork be a space of questions rather than answers, that makes it so compelling.