Untitled [portrait of a woman with cigarette] [recto] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this portrait of a woman with a cigarette using graphite on paper. Look at the thin, wiry lines that create the woman’s likeness, as if conjured from smoke, like the cigarette she holds. I can imagine Diebenkorn, with the stub of a pencil in his hand, circling this woman, trying to grasp her gaze, the way she holds herself. Her eyes are intense, focused right at us. He keeps the lines loose, hovering, and searching. There’s something so vulnerable and honest about these searching marks. You can see the ghost of a first attempt, a blue circle around her head, a false start. It reminds me of other artists who used drawing to find something true and essential. Like Giacometti with his elongated figures, or Agnes Martin’s delicate grids. Artists are always trying to find a way to say something new using old tools.