Woman in Hat and Gloves 1963

Richard Diebenkorn made Woman in Hat and Gloves with oil on canvas and it’s a piece that really shows him thinking through painting. The colors are muted but they glow, you know? They’ve got that soft West Coast light. Up close, you can see how the paint sits on the canvas, kind of thick but still translucent. Like he’s pushing it around, figuring it out as he goes. Look at the gloves, how they’re just shapes of gray and lavender, but they totally read as gloves. You can feel the weight and warmth of them. And the way that yellow scarf pops against the blues and grays, it’s like a little burst of sunshine. Diebenkorn was always playing with edges and boundaries, letting the painting breathe. It reminds me a bit of Matisse, that same love of color and form, but with an American twist. For Diebenkorn, painting was a way of seeing and feeling, and that’s what makes his work so special.