Untitled 1961

This is an untitled drawing done in 1961 by Richard Diebenkorn. It’s a jumble of charcoal marks, some dense, some sparse, that slowly coalesce into a scene, maybe a figure on a beach? I can imagine Diebenkorn’s hand moving urgently across the page, smudging and layering the charcoal to find the right balance between representation and abstraction. There’s a kind of push and pull, a struggle to capture something elusive, like a memory or a feeling. It’s this tension, this searching, that makes the drawing so alive. The dark areas feel heavy, grounded, while the lighter areas suggest open space, potential. Diebenkorn was deeply influenced by artists like Matisse and Mondrian, and you see echoes of their geometric structures in the way he organizes the composition. But he also had this raw, intuitive way of working that feels very personal, almost vulnerable. He's in conversation with them, as all painters are. The conversation continues today through looking.