Untitled [woman reading a newspaper] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this drawing, Untitled [woman reading a newspaper], with crayon on paper. You can see the lines are tentative, the artist feels his way around the page, trying to capture the way the woman is relaxing. It reminds me a little of Matisse, those women in interiors, but this is more fleeting, less sure. I wonder what Diebenkorn was thinking, watching her? Was he trying to catch her unaware, in a private moment? You know, the odd thing about drawing is that it's so immediate, but it’s also about time and looking. And there's a real vulnerability to it, when it's like this, so sketchy. The woman's posture is so relaxed, but those dark, emphatic lines around her dress and the newspaper...they really anchor her to the space. It’s like he’s searching for a solid form, but also allowing for a kind of dissolving, a fading away. All artists want to capture a feeling, and you can see it in those lines, and the way they trail off. It's like one long conversation with other artists, with the world.