Untitled [rear view of female nude] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this nude figure in ink on paper; you can almost see him moving the brush, swerving with the form. I imagine him, leaning in close, squinting, trying to resolve the shadow and light across the back and shoulders of the model. It’s so spare; there is almost nothing there! But it’s so expressive at the same time. Look at the dark, emphatic strokes defining the curve of the lower back and the back of the legs – it’s very gestural and the weight of the ink gives it a kind of physicality that echoes the weight of the body. Diebenkorn was so good at this kind of evocative line; this piece reminds me of work by artists like Matisse and Giacometti, other masters of the drawn line. Artists are in an ongoing conversation, don’t you think? Each of them finding new ways to express the seen and unseen. It feels raw and honest, this drawing – a moment of embodied looking.