Untitled [standing female nude with right foot in chair] 1955 - 1967

Editor: Here we have an untitled drawing by Richard Diebenkorn, created sometime between 1955 and 1967. It's a standing female nude rendered in ink, or possibly charcoal. There's something haunting and unfinished about it. It's almost as if the artist was searching for the form rather than defining it. What draws your eye when you look at this? Curator: Oh, absolutely, the incompleteness is where the magic lives, isn't it? It's like glimpsing a thought forming, or a memory half-remembered. Diebenkorn was so brilliant at capturing the *process* of seeing. For me, the stark contrast between the dark washes of ink and the untouched paper really speaks to that feeling of searching, of light and shadow constantly shifting. Notice how he uses the negative space, the areas he *doesn't* mark, to define the figure? Almost sculptural, wouldn't you say? What feeling does it give you? Editor: It makes me feel a bit unsteady, almost like the figure herself is about to move. It also brings to mind a very intimate moment, almost intrusive. Curator: Exactly! That tension, that sense of the fleeting… that’s Diebenkorn. It reminds me of the way light plays on a figure in a dream - you think you have a grasp of it, but it's always just out of reach, dissolving at the edges. There is also a chair represented and used as support. Is this perhaps a play on "the male gaze"? Editor: It's amazing how much feeling he could convey with so few lines. Curator: He makes it look effortless, doesn't he? Like he simply transferred an image directly from his mind onto the page. But I bet that economy of line took years of practice to achieve! I am reminded of Cezanne. Editor: This really shifts my perspective on what a finished piece can be! I can understand that there is intention with something being unfinished. Thanks for unpacking this. Curator: The pleasure is mine. Now that you mentioned this feeling, that makes me reflect on how important negative space is. Every line truly matters.