Untitled [nude seated with her hands on her knees] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this nude drawing with ink on paper sometime during his career. The figure is rendered with swift black lines, a constellation of colorful speckles adding depth. Imagine Diebenkorn in his studio, the brush dancing across the page, lines forming, dissolving, and reforming. Those drips and splatters look like mistakes at first, but I think they are carefully placed, like tiny color notes that bring the drawing to life. There is a freedom here, like the artist is discovering the body as he goes, a raw and vulnerable energy, like a Cy Twombly, but somehow, with the relaxed Californian vibe of, say, David Hockney. The way he’s done those hands—you can tell he really *looked* at them. I see the legacy of Matisse, with his playful line and love of the figure, but Diebenkorn makes it his own. It reminds us that art is about seeing and feeling, not just perfect representation, and each artist is having a conversation with those that came before them.