Untitled [standing female nude turning toward viewer] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this untitled drawing of a standing female nude, turning toward us, with graphite on paper. Diebenkorn’s marks are restless and searching, aren’t they? The whole drawing feels like a process, a kind of visual conversation between the artist and the model. You can almost feel the artist circling around her form. Notice how the lines sometimes double back on themselves, unsure, adjusting, and then resolving into a contour. The texture is delicate, built up of thin strokes that suggest volume through hatching and cross-hatching. Look at the area around her face and hair. See how the graphite is layered to create a sense of depth and shadow. It's not about perfect representation, but about the act of seeing and translating that onto paper. There's an honesty in the process, a vulnerability in leaving the searching marks visible. This drawing reminds me of other artists like Giacometti, who also used line to explore the fragility and ephemerality of the human form. Art is about the journey, the exploration, and the multiple possibilities inherent in every mark.