Untitled [nude in an armchair adjusting her hair] 1955 - 1967

Curator: Richard Diebenkorn's charcoal drawing, "Untitled [nude in an armchair adjusting her hair]", dating from 1955 to 1967, strikes me with its bold lines, though the subject feels intimate. Editor: Yes, the gestural quality evokes immediacy. I sense a tension between vulnerability and control. How might this image speak to historical representations of the female nude? Curator: The composition presents a compelling dynamic of form. Consider the use of line, at once definitive and tentative, as it sculpts the figure within its environment. There’s a beautiful spatial ambiguity achieved by the simple economy of means. Editor: I appreciate the attention to form. I’m curious about how we read the gaze. Her face is partially obscured, so are we looking *at* her, or does this offer some degree of interiority? Curator: A structural reading suggests that this compositional strategy emphasizes the inherent objectness of the figure. The cropping of the frame, combined with this gestural approach to form, heightens that object quality, wouldn't you say? Editor: I see that, but I wonder if we can't also interpret her concealed gaze and the posture— adjusting her hair—as indicative of interiority and agency, not just objectification. What is the agency of the sitter here? This places her within the tradition of the nude but pushes against passive readings. Curator: Perhaps both perspectives are valid within the inherent duality of representation. Regardless, Diebenkorn’s capacity for expressing nuanced forms is compelling, especially through this rather immediate medium. Editor: I agree. And for contemporary audiences it asks about the continued place of the nude and its social contexts in representing and perceiving the female figure in art. The immediacy lends this an added layer of introspection in posing such questions.