Untitled [standing female nude manipulating a small object] 1955 - 1967

This drawing of a standing nude, manipulating a small object, was made by Richard Diebenkorn. The marks are dark, the pressure uneven; Diebenkorn teasing out a figure from a jumble of lines. It’s all about the push and pull of looking, seeing, and then drawing what you think you see, and then looking again. I love how the charcoal almost seems to scumble across the surface of the paper, clinging to the tooth of the page. Look at the shading on her arm, the way the marks are allowed to pool and gather, so that the arm feels heavy with shadow, but also strangely delicate. The drawing feels unfinished, a fragment of an idea, but it is the artist’s process of looking that is really brought into focus. The piece shares an affinity with the work of Willem de Kooning, who had a similar love of the ambiguous figure. The drawing isn't trying to capture a likeness, but to capture a moment of seeing.