Untitled [female nude seated in armchair] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this drawing of a seated nude with ink on paper, and when you look at it, you can almost see the brush dancing. It’s all sweeping lines and pools of dark wash – a real study in weight and form. I can imagine him, totally focused, moving around the model, trying to pin down that perfect curve of a shoulder or the angle of the body in the chair. What do you think he was thinking when he made that dark slash that defines her torso? I wonder if it felt bold or uncertain as he was doing it? It is a strong move. Diebenkorn was really committed to this back-and-forth between abstraction and figuration, wasn't he? Like with de Kooning, who was a generation older, he kept the push-pull between the figure and ground alive. It's like he's not just representing a body, but also the very act of seeing and trying to capture it on paper. It is like they are all in conversation together.