Untitled 1980

Seymour Lipton made this untitled drawing on paper with graphite sometime in the 20th century. I love the way he lets the drawing emerge from a cluster of marks, like he’s thinking through the process of building a sculpture. The texture is raw, immediate. You can almost feel the graphite scratching against the paper. It’s cool how the light seems to come from within, with the shading creating a kind of internal glow. The composition reminds me of a stage set, and there's a certain sense of gravity to the piece, maybe that’s coming from the subject matter itself, or from the way the lines seem to pull downwards. Looking at this drawing I’m reminded of the work of David Smith, particularly his drawings for sculptures, which also have that sense of searching and finding form through line. Ultimately, Lipton's drawing invites us to embrace the beauty of the unfinished, the open-ended, and the possibility of art as a journey rather than a destination.