Untitled [side view of a nude raising her left arm and leg] 1955 - 1967

Editor: We’re looking at an untitled pencil drawing by Richard Diebenkorn, likely made between 1955 and 1967. It depicts a nude figure, almost gestural in its form, arm raised, leg lifted. It feels very immediate, capturing a fleeting moment. What do you see in this piece that perhaps I'm missing? Curator: It hums with an almost electric energy, doesn’t it? It’s as if Diebenkorn isn’t just drawing the figure, but the very *act* of seeing it, the shifting light, the pose dissolving and reforming. Think of it like jazz – the subject's there, but the improvisation is the real song. Do you feel that looseness too, in the mark-making? Editor: I do see the energy in the quick strokes. And jazz, that's a really interesting comparison. It does have this sense of being something observed quickly. But how does that connect to Diebenkorn himself? Curator: Ah, that's the mystery, isn't it? Diebenkorn was wrestling with representation and abstraction. A nude, sure, a classic subject, but the "how" he shows us this matters. It is like he is pushing to see how little is needed to describe the seen experience. Does this make the nude any less a person? Or something more…abstract, a meditation on form itself? It invites such intimacy! Editor: That push-pull between representation and abstraction makes so much sense now! I was so focused on the figure that I missed how much it’s about the act of drawing itself. Curator: Precisely! And maybe, just maybe, it’s also a self-portrait of the artist, grappling with those tensions. Who hasn't struggled to capture a fleeting moment? The real question is – can art share those personal tensions, so we can understand ourselves in a deeper sense? Editor: What a wonderfully suggestive notion. I'm definitely walking away with a richer understanding! Thanks!