Untitled [seated female nude looking down] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this seated nude with ink on paper, and I can just imagine him hunched over the paper, the ink bleeding slightly as he worked. The whole thing is rendered in washes of black, with a few thin lines defining the edges. You get the feeling that Diebenkorn wasn't trying to capture a likeness, but something more like a mood. A heavy mood. Look at that head, bent in a way that suggests weariness or sadness. I wonder what was going through his head when he made this? The way he uses ink reminds me of Franz Kline, but with a human figure instead of architecture. There's a certain rawness that feels very personal, like he's working through something on the page. Artists are always responding to each other, riffing on what came before, and Diebenkorn is no exception. He takes the language of abstract expressionism and uses it to create something deeply felt and intimate. It's a beautiful reminder that painting is always a conversation.