Untitled [seated female nude with raised right arm] [recto] 1955 - 1967

Editor: So, we're looking at Richard Diebenkorn's "Untitled [seated female nude with raised right arm]" made between 1955 and 1967, created with ink. It's interesting how simplified the form is, almost gestural. What catches your eye in this drawing? Curator: You know, it’s that rawness that gets me. It’s like catching a glimpse of the artist's process, his searching, his doubts even. Diebenkorn wasn't just trying to copy what he saw. He was after something deeper – the feeling of the pose, the weight of the body. What do you think it communicates? Editor: Maybe vulnerability? It feels like an intimate moment, caught on paper. Curator: Absolutely! It is intimate. You sense that hesitancy in the lines. He doesn’t hide those little imperfections, the places where he reworked things. It's so different from, say, a polished academic nude, where everything's idealized. Diebenkorn offers you reality, still full of beauty though. See the expressiveness achieved by what’s been left out versus what’s included. Where does your eye linger? Editor: Probably the face, and then how he rendered the hands. They feel so deliberate, even with their abstraction. Curator: The hands have a weight about them, don't they? A solid groundedness at the lower center of the drawing, acting as visual anchors for everything above them. It also suggests the weight of existence or experience. It brings this raw reality to it. It almost feels defiant. And then he surrounds that strong image with what looks almost to be pale ghosts, the vestiges of prior renderings… Editor: This makes me think about how even in something unfinished, there's so much intention, or perhaps so much more feeling. Curator: Exactly. Maybe it’s about finding beauty in the imperfect. We expect art to always be complete, neat… but maybe there is much more beauty in this revealing quality and process of showing its creation?