Seated Women Facing Left [recto] c. 1945

Franz Kline made this drawing, Seated Woman Facing Left, with graphite on paper. Look at these lines! See how they don’t quite join? It’s like he’s thinking on the page. He’s not trying to trick you into thinking this is a real woman; he wants you to know he’s drawing. The texture is all in the varying pressure of the graphite; dark accents create shadows, but mostly it’s a see-through kind of drawing, the lines suggesting form without closing it off. Notice the back of the chair, how it’s barely there, just a few strokes. And then there’s that scribble under the chair. What is it? A signature, a doodle, a little burst of energy. This drawing reminds me of a Cy Twombly, another artist interested in the gesture of line. But where Twombly is all swoon and flourish, Kline is direct and powerful. Ultimately, it’s the open-endedness of Kline’s drawing that really grabs me; it embraces the beauty of imperfection.