Untitled [female nude reaching down with left hand to grasp her foot] 1955 - 1967

This figure drawing was made by Richard Diebenkorn with charcoal on paper. It's like he's feeling his way around the form, not trying to capture it exactly but trying to understand the gesture. See how the charcoal is smudged in places, especially around the shadow areas of the figure? It gives the drawing a real sense of depth and volume, even though it's just lines on paper. It's not about perfect representation, but about the artist's hand moving across the surface, responding to the subject. Think of his Ocean Park series, the way he builds up layers of color and texture, scraping and sanding and repainting. In this drawing, Diebenkorn does something similar, just with charcoal. There's a real sense of process and discovery, a feeling that the artist is working through something, not just copying what he sees. Much like Matisse and his line drawings, Diebenkorn embraces simplicity and ambiguity.