Untitled

Untitled

Dieter Roth

1974

graphite

From the collection of Museum of Modern Art

About this work

This sketch looks like a face drawn with endless, tangled lines. The pencil strokes make a hat and a hood, but they’re so thick and overlapping they blur into shapes. The lines don’t stop—they keep going, like they’re caught in motion. The artist used quick, messy strokes to fill the whole page. It’s hard to tell where one shape ends and another begins. Try looking up cross-hatching to see how artists build shadows with lines.

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