Untitled [seated model with an earring] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this untitled ink drawing of a seated model, with an earring, sometime in the mid-20th century. Diebenkorn belonged to a generation of American artists who grappled with the legacy of European modernism and the rise of abstract expressionism. Although this piece seems to be a simple figure sketch, we can appreciate the artist's effort to find a balance between pure abstraction and representational art. His visual language is rooted in a tradition of life drawing that goes back to the European academies. At the same time, it resonates with the new aesthetic of spontaneity. By looking at the archives of art schools, exhibition catalogs, and critical reviews from the period, we can trace the institutional forces that shaped Diebenkorn's artistic trajectory. By doing so, we can begin to appreciate the artist's unique contribution to American modernism.