Abby Margulies reviews Richard Diebenkorn: The Sketchbooks Revealed at the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford, on view through February 8, 2016.

Margulies writes: "While major scholarly analysis of the sketchbooks has yet to be undertaken, the initial research and resulting exhibition reveal an aspect of Diebenkorn’s process that’s gone unexplored: he was making simple sketches from life constantly, suggesting that his major compositions may have been drawn more from happenstance slices of life rather than carefully composed scenes. …While the acquisition of these drawings offers tremendous possibility for Dievenkorn scholars down the line, it also provides art lovers with the rare chance to encounter the human side of a great painter, to see the beginnings of his masterworks in careful studies of the simplest and most intimate subjects."