Untitled [standing female nude with left hand on hip] [verso] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this drawing of a standing nude with ink on paper. He used a single, dark, unwavering line that is so confident, so sure. It almost feels like he wasn’t looking at the paper as he drew. The line itself is the whole thing. The weight of it, sometimes thick, sometimes thin, shows us the pressure and speed of his hand. Look at the way the line of her back simply stops, or the blot of ink at the bottom of the page, like a punctuation mark. It’s all about the gesture, the energy. You can sense Diebenkorn really exploring what it means to distill a form down to its most essential elements. This reminds me of Matisse, especially his line drawings. There’s the same sense of play, the same joy in just making a mark and seeing what happens. These drawings feel like a conversation, a way of thinking through line and form. It's about exploration, not perfection.