Untitled [interior with standing female nude] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this ink drawing of a standing nude, probably in a studio, possibly from life. I can imagine Diebenkorn trying to capture the essence of his subject, working quickly, intuitively. There’s something so immediate and vulnerable about it. The washes of ink, diluted to a grey, create depth, volume, and shadow. The standing female figure emerges from the interior space in a gestural manner. I imagine the artist, with his brush, trying to find a way to articulate the figure as a form of feeling, thought, and experience, rather than as a literal representation. See how the vertical strokes of the background are echoed in the way that the body is delineated. The darkest shades of ink describe the solid block of the chair on the lower left. It makes me think of other artists like Willem de Kooning, who were also interested in capturing the dynamism of the human form, and experimenting with abstraction and figuration. Artists are always responding to each other, you know, it’s a conversation across time. There’s a beautiful sense of ambiguity here, of not quite knowing, which I always think is a strength.