Untitled [front view of seated female nude with left hand on head] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this drawing of a seated nude in charcoal, or maybe it's ink – you could decide. Look at that heavy black line that gives the figure its heft, the quick strokes and erasures. I love how immediate and raw it feels, like a thought caught on paper. I wonder what Diebenkorn was thinking as he worked. Was he trying to capture a likeness, or was he more interested in the play of light and shadow on the body? That heavy, almost violent mark-making suggests he was searching, wrestling with form, trying to find something true. The drawing feels like a conversation with artists like Matisse and Picasso, who also explored the nude form with such freedom and passion. Artists are always talking to each other, you know, across time and space. We pick up where others left off, adding our own voices to the mix. Painting is like that—an ongoing dialogue, full of questions and possibilities.