Untitled [seated female nude resting her head on her right hand] 1955 - 1967

This is a drawing by Richard Diebenkorn, of a seated female nude, resting her head on her right hand. It's all lines, really, just blue lines on paper. I can imagine Diebenkorn with his pen, circling the figure, trying to find her contours, the weight of her pose. See how the lines sometimes double back, like he’s searching? There’s a vulnerability in that searching, a kind of tenderness. It's like he's saying, "I'm not sure, but I'm going to keep looking until I find something true." Diebenkorn was so good at this kind of looking—it reminds me of Matisse, all those spare but incredibly sensual line drawings. I can imagine him thinking about Matisse, trying to get at that same kind of directness, that same kind of feeling. It's this beautiful conversation across time, artists challenging and inspiring each other. What you see on the paper is not fixed but embodies the movement of discovery.