Study for "Defender" 1962

Seymour Lipton made this drawing, a study for "Defender," with what looks like charcoal, at some point in his career. Looking at the image, I can see him working, rubbing, erasing, and then going back in, trying to resolve an image that I can only assume was already living in his head. He's working it out on paper; it’s a kind of conversation. Maybe he didn’t know exactly where he was going, but he allowed the image to emerge through a process of trial and error. You know, sometimes that’s when the magic happens. I'm thinking about the title, "Defender." Is it an image of a figure defending something? Or is the sculpture itself a defender? Maybe Lipton was thinking about the role of art as a defender of certain values. The bulbous shape on the side, which looks a little like a horn, makes me think of the work of Picasso and Lipchitz. It reminds me that artists are in ongoing dialogue, borrowing and riffing off each other’s ideas.