Untitled [seated female nude looking to her right] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this untitled drawing of a seated female nude, probably in the 1960s, using charcoal on paper. In American art schools at this time, life drawing was a core element of the curriculum, and the female nude a central, if problematic, subject. Many saw the life-drawing class as a conservative holdover from the nineteenth century, an artistic exercise that had become anachronistic. Yet it persisted, even as social mores about the representation of the body were being challenged by second-wave feminism. Diebenkorn's approach here seems less about objectifying the model, and more about using the figure to explore line and form. His gestural charcoal marks don’t attempt to capture an ideal form, but rather describe the shapes of the body in a tentative and exploratory way. To understand this work fully, one would want to research not only Diebenkorn's artistic practice, but also the changing role of art education in the mid-20th century.