Untitled [seated nude draping her right leg over a chair arm] 1955 - 1967

Here we see a seated nude made by Richard Diebenkorn using ink on paper. The gestural marks, rendered in thin black ink, give a sense of how the artwork came into being. There is a searching, shifting, and emerging through trial, error, and intuition. The negative space around the figure is just as important as the lines that define her form. You can feel Diebenkorn’s hand moving across the paper, trying to capture the essence of the model’s pose. The line is confident, but it also wavers, suggesting the artist’s uncertainty. The artist is in conversation with other painters like Matisse, and is trying to bring their conversation into his own time and place. Each line communicates feeling, intention, and meaning. The model’s gesture is relaxed, and the artist captures it without trying to pin it down. Artists are in an ongoing exchange of ideas across time, inspiring one another’s creativity and allowing for multiple interpretations.