Untitled [nude standing with her legs apart] 1955 - 1967

Curator: There's a kind of raw vulnerability to this charcoal drawing by Richard Diebenkorn, made sometime between 1955 and 1967. It's titled "Untitled [nude standing with her legs apart]". What's your first impression? Editor: Immediate impression? Powerful stance, almost confrontational, but rendered with this lovely, smudgy softness. It’s a study in contrasts, isn’t it? Curator: Exactly! And think about what the "nude" traditionally symbolizes: innocence, vulnerability, exposure. But here, the figure seems self-possessed, not really playing into the male gaze at all. Editor: I see that! Look at the head turned slightly away. It defies a direct reading, it almost refuses the viewer access. Then there’s the way the charcoal marks themselves add to the narrative. See how rough and expressive they are, less about idealization and more about capturing a physical presence? Curator: Diebenkorn really pushes against that smooth, polished tradition of the academic nude. It's almost brutal in its honesty. Do you think the pose – the way she stands with her legs apart, weight shifted to one side – is supposed to make us uncomfortable? Editor: Potentially. The open stance reads as an expression of power, particularly because that openness and vulnerability is rarely afforded to women in historical portrayals of the nude. This complicates conventional tropes; it reclaims something for the subject. Curator: It really challenges what we think we know about that subject, doesn’t it? Which for me, leads to its compellingness. Editor: And for me, seeing this now reminds me to look past initial assumptions. Curator: To see beyond our culturally-inherited symbolism, perhaps? Editor: Precisely. To remember that art helps us ask questions, maybe even to see with fresh eyes.