Untitled [female nude with raised arms leaning back in chair] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this drawing of a female nude, leaning back in a chair, with charcoal on paper. I imagine Diebenkorn in the studio, squinting at the model. The figure emerges through the charcoal lines. There’s a lightness to it, a searching quality. The marks are tentative, like he's feeling his way through the form. I love the contrast between the dark, smudged shadows and the clean, crisp lines that define the chair. The pose is so relaxed, arms behind her head, like she’s sunbathing. I wonder what they were talking about, if the model was reading, or listening to music. The missing face gives the drawing this cool, detached feeling, like a memory. Diebenkorn does that. He leaves space for you to wander in. It makes me think of other drawings, like those by Matisse and Picasso. Artists are always looking at each other, picking up where someone else left off. Drawing is like thinking out loud, each mark a response to the one before. It’s a conversation, really, between the artist, the model, and us, the viewers.