Untitled [seated man with his legs extended] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this drawing of a seated man with ink on paper, and it's all about the tentative mark. The lines feel exploratory, like he’s thinking through the form as he goes, adjusting and refining his perception with each stroke. You can almost feel the artist's hand moving across the paper, searching for the right contours and angles. Notice the way he's captured the weight and volume of the figure with such simple means. It’s all line, and yet, you get a real sense of the body beneath the clothes, the slump of the shoulders, the bend of the knee. That blank space where the head should be becomes really important, it places the emphasis on what the body is doing and how it’s feeling. I think of Matisse, and how his line drawings also manage to be both descriptive and deeply expressive. This piece feels like it is part of that ongoing conversation. It reminds us that sometimes, what’s left unsaid, or un-drawn, speaks the loudest.