Untitled [seated female nude turning toward viewer] 1955 - 1967

Editor: Here we have Richard Diebenkorn's "Untitled [seated female nude turning toward viewer]," a pencil drawing created sometime between 1955 and 1967. I’m really drawn to the texture he’s able to achieve with such simple materials. What strikes you about it? Curator: What I see is the immediate relationship between the artist, the model, and the materials at hand: paper and pencil. Diebenkorn’s mark-making reveals the labor involved in creating this image, the time spent observing and translating form onto the page. Editor: That's interesting. I hadn’t thought about the labor involved so directly, but it does feel very immediate and process-oriented. Curator: Exactly. Think about the production of the pencil itself – the graphite mined, the wood carved and shaped, the entire industry behind its availability. And then consider the sitter. How does her pose contribute to or resist traditional representations of the female nude and the expectations surrounding it? Editor: The sketch-like quality does push back on the traditional idealized nude, I think. It’s more about capturing a moment, an impression. Curator: And it’s within that impression that Diebenkorn wrestles with the constraints of both material and subject. What narratives about value, class, or artistic labor does this simple drawing open up for us? Editor: That's a compelling perspective! Thinking about the materials and the process definitely enriches the viewing experience. Curator: It allows us to see art not as some rarefied object, but as the product of specific materials and a series of choices made by the artist within a specific social and economic context.