Untitled [verso] 1945 - 1948

This small, untitled drawing by Franz Kline is made with thin black lines and smudges of beige wash. I can see him making it, feeling for the right mark, wiping some away, adding others, almost like a dance. I imagine Kline, maybe in his studio on 14th street, cigarette dangling, squinting as he works. The lines are tense, like taught wires, but also kind of vulnerable. Is that a face in the middle, or am I imagining it? Probably imagining it. Kline's known for his big, bold black and white paintings, but seeing him work small like this is intimate; it feels like catching him in a moment of doubt or maybe just thinking out loud. I like how all painters have their own ways of seeing, some bold and brash, others quiet and searching, all of them in conversation with each other, trying to figure it out.