Untitled [seated female nude with right arm over chair back] 1955 - 1967

Curator: What immediately strikes me is the urgency in those lines, the almost frantic energy captured in monochrome. Editor: This is Richard Diebenkorn’s "Untitled [seated female nude with right arm over chair back]," which he likely made sometime between 1955 and 1967. It’s a drawing, primarily, and it's fascinating for its apparent simplicity and also the amount of labor visible in it, the quick gestures adding up. It makes me wonder about the material conditions; paper stock, the accessibility of pen and ink in California, mid-century. Curator: Yes, the visible labor! You feel the artist wrestling with form, line... truth, perhaps. There's something incredibly intimate about a nude. Almost like reading a secret diary entry; Diebenkorn laying bare his artistic process but also something more vulnerable through his subject, a seated female. It whispers. Editor: I'm with you. Looking at the build-up of ink, it reads as more than just observational – almost like the artist’s thought process, layered and revealed. And that contrast, you know? The almost classical subject meets this raw, process-heavy method. I find it really compelling that what some call “sketchiness” opens a window to materiality; labor is laid bare when artists reveal more process than polish. Curator: Absolutely, a constant negotiation between control and chance. You look at those sweeping strokes that define the figure’s contours, and then the darker, more frenzied marks detailing her form... it’s as if the subconscious is dictating, or the artist doesn't quite feel fully certain, and yet there’s so much boldness there as well. Editor: And this being from the mid-20th century makes me also wonder, who made the paper itself? Or produced the inks, even? It’s humbling and important to note the hands we don’t see, who enable this drawing through the availability of such essential materials. Thinking about this changes the context so dramatically! Curator: Absolutely it does. Thank you for bringing that crucial lens into view. What might seem like a simple, personal exploration through art turns into a tapestry of human stories linked by these materials. Editor: Well, that’s a good reminder of where beauty can be found – both in creative acts but also how art material conditions its future making, in an ongoing historical arc.