Seated Female Facing Left 1944

Franz Kline made this ink drawing, Seated Female Facing Left, on paper, and the date is unknown. Kline is playing with the push and pull between representation and abstraction, and you can already see him working things out in a process-based way. The ink is applied with a kind of urgency, and you can almost feel him flicking the brush across the page to make marks. Look at the economy of line and the way the darkest areas of ink create depth and shadow. And then there’s this beautiful calligraphy that defines the outline of the chair. It’s almost as if he's trying to make the line itself a kind of subject. It reminds me of Brice Marden’s drawings, or maybe even some of Cy Twombly’s looser, more gestural work. Ultimately, this is a drawing that embraces process, chance, and the beauty of raw, unfiltered mark-making.