Untitled [side view of woman] [verso] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this untitled sketch of a woman in blue ink, we don't know exactly when. But you can see him thinking through the figure in the layering of lines. There's something so intimate about a drawing, right? You see the artist's hand, their searching, their corrections. The blue ink is thin and transparent, like a memory. Look at the way he's drawn the leg closest to us. There's a confidence there, a boldness. But then, the face is almost obscured, lost in shadow and repetition. Diebenkorn was so influenced by Matisse. You can see it in the simplicity of the line, the way he captures form with so few strokes. And like Matisse, he wasn't afraid to leave things unresolved, to let the process be visible. To me, it's not just a study of a figure, but a study of seeing, of trying to understand the world through line and form.