Untitled [seated couple] 1955 - 1967

This drawing, Untitled [seated couple] by Richard Diebenkorn, is made with charcoal on paper. Look at the scratchy marks, the way the charcoal has bitten into the page, making a kind of moody atmosphere. I like to imagine Diebenkorn, deeply involved in the act of creation, making a work of intuitive gestures. He’s trying to figure something out, working through the figures in charcoal, trying to find their center. The couple is captured in a moment of quiet contemplation. Maybe he was thinking about what it means to really see someone, how much seeing is about touch, or feeling. Look at the density of the marks around the head of the figure on the left, it's almost sculptural. It reminds me a little of de Kooning's drawings, in the way it wrestles with the subject. The language of painting has always been a conversation, it stretches back through history, an ongoing dialogue between artists, inspiring one another to see the world anew.