Untitled [seated female nude holding her leg with her right hand] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this untitled drawing of a seated nude, and I can only imagine what it would have been like to be in the room with him as he was making it. It's all about these gentle lines, right? And the way they kind of search around the form. You can sense his hand moving, trying to capture the weight and curve of the body. Diebenkorn’s lines are tentative, almost shy. The negative space becomes as important as the figure itself. I am so curious about how he built up the image, line by line. It reminds me of Matisse, and the way he used line to convey volume and space. A lot of artists use the act of drawing as a form of inquiry, a way to understand the world through looking and mark-making. It’s a conversation between the eye, the hand, and the subject. And, in this case, the viewer.