Untitled [female nude in a dark setting] [recto] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this ink drawing of a female nude, with a brush, on paper. It's all blacks and grays, mostly darker tones. I can imagine him, standing up, quickly moving the brush to capture the form, but not really defining it, more like suggesting it. I wonder if he felt how the drawing was so precarious, how one more dark stroke could kill it. I wonder if he was thinking of other artists while he was making this, like maybe the abstract expressionist Franz Kline. I find the drawing incredibly sensual and vulnerable, despite its starkness. It's like he's saying, "Here is a body, in all its messy, imperfect glory." And that takes guts, you know? It's like he's having a conversation with other painters, across time and space, saying: "I see you, I hear you, and I'm adding my voice to the mix."