Untitled [front view of seated female nude] 1955 - 1967

Curator: Take a moment to look at this “Untitled [front view of seated female nude]” by Richard Diebenkorn, likely created between 1955 and 1967, using a humble pencil on paper. What's your initial take? Editor: It's immediately vulnerable. The facelessness makes it feel… universal, I suppose. Like she could be anyone, and that almost enhances the starkness of the nude form. Curator: Diebenkorn's line is so interesting here—economical, but confident. It seems to dance between classical academic studies and something far more personal. Knowing the period, I immediately consider the legacy of observational life drawings done in art school classrooms of the time. Editor: Definitely, but he's also stripping it down, right? The chair is just enough, barely there. And that's what makes me think about how much this piece reflects a post-war, post-industrial artistic labor, perhaps an underpaid model's pose held longer than anyone should expect. A material reality expressed in minimal strokes. Curator: I love how you’re contextualizing that within the materials themselves. To me, this faceless figure speaks about a particular kind of gaze – one that attempts objectivity, yet inevitably reveals more about the artist, about ourselves as viewers, than about the sitter herself. What do we project onto her? Is it our expectations or our own desires? Editor: Well, that’s true, and maybe I'm bringing my own 21st century biases into this, but even with that, the physical nature of her existence– someone who held this position, whose time had monetary value…It's a quiet critique of artistic production. You see that in his later work, as well. The materials dictate so much of the narrative for Diebenkorn. Curator: That tension you are talking about creates a sort of electricity; a frisson, isn't it? The quietness somehow becomes a roar in its very understatement. Editor: Indeed. There's almost an accidental dignity in that restraint. Thinking about this drawing with the lens of materials, process and making sheds light on its emotional undercurrent. Curator: Precisely, an invitation to contemplate not just the beauty, but the intricate threads of labor and materials woven into the art making.