untitled [seated female nude with hands in lap] 1955 - 1967

Curator: Here we have an untitled work by Richard Diebenkorn, created sometime between 1955 and 1967. It depicts a seated female nude, rendered with hands resting in her lap. Editor: Striking! It feels almost weightless, as if the figure is barely tethered to the chair. The ink is so confident, so decisive, and the negative space practically hums. There's a certain vulnerability, maybe even a hint of melancholy in her posture. Curator: Indeed. Diebenkorn's use of line is quite economical. Observe how a few, carefully placed strokes define the form, suggesting volume and shadow without resorting to excessive detail. The composition itself—the figure's placement within the frame, the simplified background—contributes to this effect. It reduces the pictorial field to its bare essentials. Editor: You know, I almost feel like she’s a sketch of a memory, less about the flesh and blood and more about the essence of a moment observed, distilled. And there’s a tension in those strong lines that both captures and obscures at the same time. Curator: The tension lies in Diebenkorn’s commitment to abstraction even within representation. He resists photographic realism, instead prioritizing the abstract qualities of line, shape, and spatial relationships. Even with the subject being what it is. This creates, as you mentioned, a push and pull for the viewer’s perspective. Editor: I like that...it feels more like poetry than prose; fragmented verses alluding to something complete. As if he’s showing me the ghost of a person rather than the whole being. And the looseness, you feel he wasn't striving for accuracy, but for feeling. Curator: Ultimately, it invites us to consider how much information is truly needed to evoke form, emotion, and perhaps even narrative. Editor: It's as if this seated nude exists in some private emotional plane and it pulls the viewer to engage in that emotion, the raw sketchiness leaves this open, incomplete allowing viewers to feel comfortable completing it. Curator: A powerful example of reduction. Editor: Exactly, more isn’t more!