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Lot Essay
Like a thriving garden or a cornucopia, Lee Krasner’s Untitled is the result of growth, renewal, and nourishment—even in the face of loss. Upon her husband Jackson Pollock’s death in August 1956, Krasner threw herself into a new era of simultaneous mourning and innovation. Untitled resonates with these conflicting and generative emotional states, and its variegated, hieroglyphic surface fits together in harmony. Untitled is a portrait of a life in transition, akin to the cyclicality of Krasner’s series. As her biographer Gail Levin writes, “After Pollock’s sudden death, she painted bold and upbeat works in a series she called Earth Green. Her impulse was to reach out and boldly embrace life…Her frequent preoccupations include an emphasis on nature, and she sometimes hints of birth, destruction, and regeneration” (G. Levin, Lee Krasner: A Biography, New York, 2012, p. 320). These characteristics are evident in Untitled, which masterfully weaves together pain and zeal.
Untitled, at about five feet by five-and-a-half feet, immerses the viewer in Krasner’s emotional and artistic concerns of the late 1950s as she confidently developed her style. The interlocking greens, maroons, and oranges engender a bold color palette with a sculptural quality, as if these bounded fields of color might rise up out of the canvas like reliefs. Branchlike forms frame the canvas’s left edge, guarding the mitochondrial entities within. Concealed in the lower left corner, a progression of loops an swirls evokes her signature, mimicking the burgeoning of the organic forms above. Untitled is both ordered and entropic as Krasner builds up the canvas with bounded marks that each contain their own cosmos. Her brushstrokes are as abstract as they are representational, resulting in an atmospheric, biomorphic scene. The admixture of earthen, natural hues with bursts of color in Untitled is reminiscent of Impressionism, which saw a renewed critical interest in the 1950s. Krasner’s allover tendency in Untitled creates, in the tradition of Impressionism, a “quiet, uniform pattern of strokes…spread over the canvas without climax or emphasis” (L. Krasner, quoted in J. Marter, Women of Abstract Expressionism, exh. cat., Denver Art Museum, Denver, 2016, p. 62). Yet there is nothing quiet about Untitled. Instead, the characters and forms that reside within it create their own sheet music, their own orchestra.
The present work likely emerged from a pivotal period deemed the Earth Green Series, which occupied the artist from 1956-1959, until she shifted into her Umber paintings. Krasner named the series Earth Green at the suggestion of her friend, the critic B.H. Friedman, who wrote of the series in 1958, “In looking at these paintings, listening to them, feeling them, I know that this work—Lee Krasner’s most mature and personal, as well as most joyous and positive, to date…are a stunning affirmation of life” (B.H. Friedman, Lee Krasner: Paintings, Drawings and Collages, exh. cat., Whitechapel Gallery, London, 1965, p. 13). Examples of the Earth Green paintings are held in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and California State University, Long Beach, among other esteemed collections.
Untitled distills the most affecting features of the Earth Green Series, including a monumental scale, verdant pigments, and new representations of space. With its flirtation with naturalism, landscape, and representation generally, the painting is a transitional canvas for Krasner. Instead of focusing solely on art historical debates, Krasner also sought to create paintings about life itself. In a 1960 interview, she observes, “Painting is not separate from life. It is one. It is like asking—do I want to live? My answer is yes—and I paint” (L. Krasner, quoted in E. Landau, Reading Abstract Expressionism: Context and Critique, New Haven, 2005, p. 237). Untitled therefore gives shape, literally and metaphorically, to Krasner’s will to live, and indeed painting’s life-affirming role throughout history.
As such, Krasner managed to create a signature style without uniformity that set her apart from the highly visible “signatures” of Jackson Pollock’s drips, Mark Rothko’s veils of color, or Barnett Newman’s zips. With her signature and her identity painted into the very scaffolding of Untitled, Krasner developed a “fierce insistence on the possibility both of entering high culture on its terms and of making that culture her own” (A. Wagner, “Lee Krasner as L.K.,” Representations, No. 25, Winter 1989, p. 55). Krasner has therefore placed herself inextricably within the painting, as if she is the cartographer of a never-before-seen landscape.
It is no mistake that Untitled and the Earth Green Series, as patchworks of complex emotions, reflect Krasner’s renewed interest in collage as a modernist strategy. According to Helen A. Harrison, director of the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in East Hampton, Krasner’s later work benefitted from “the nature-derived imagery she had first explored in the gestural arabesques of the Earth Green paintings, emphasizing their calligraphic qualities and later sharpening their edges to resemble cutout collage elements (H.A. Harrison, “Lee Krasner,” Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, n.d.). Krasner therefore recalls the primacy of collage in the early twentieth-century avant-gardes, especially Jean Arp’s paper collage Untitled (Squares Arranged According to the Laws of Chance) (1917) and Pablo Picasso’s Cubist assemblage Still Life with Chair Caning (1912). While Arp often relied on chance for his collages, Krasner’s strong marks in Untitled are filled with intentionality. Moreover, Picasso pushed the pictorial to its limits by investing in figuration and appropriation, while Krasner remained focused on abstraction, despite the naturalistic connotations her work skirts.
Finally, Untitled provides insight into the relationship between postwar painting and nature. A 1968 review observes of the Earth Green series, “In these works, large foliate shafts or animal like forms, staring eyes, disembodied limbs, and sac-shaped protuberances fill the canvas in swirling, bursting rhythms. They are both joyous and threatening, affirmative and atavistic in their treatment and effect” (E. Wasserman, “Lee Krasner in Mid-Career,” Artforum, Vol. 6, No. 7, March, 1968, p. 42While the Abstract Expressionists approached nature as something universal and transcendent, Untitled and the Green Earth Series feel rooted, tangible, and particular to Krasner’s circumstances.
You have a very strong inner rhythm. You must always hold that.(P. Mondrian, quoted in D. Seckler, “Oral history interview with Lee Krasner, 1964 Nov. 2—1968 Apr. 11,” Smithsonian Archives of American Art, 1964-1968)
Untitled represents a chance to look into Krasner’s world, which, like art history itself, is multifarious and dynamic. This painting sets her apart from her peers as she eschewed the tenets of any one movement. She was, like the floating, cursive-like marks of Untitled, beyond categorization. As Piet Mondrian, one of Krasner’s inspirations, told her, “You have a very strong inner rhythm. You must always hold that” (P. Mondrian, quoted in D. Seckler, “Oral history interview with Lee Krasner, 1964 Nov. 2—1968 Apr. 11,” Smithsonian Archives of American Art, 1964-1968). And hold it she did, especially in her life’s darkest moments, which became periods of evolution. Untitled is an indispensable mid-career painting that foreshadows her practice for years to come. Both a summation and a departure, Untitled shows Krasner at her bravest.
Untitled, at about five feet by five-and-a-half feet, immerses the viewer in Krasner’s emotional and artistic concerns of the late 1950s as she confidently developed her style. The interlocking greens, maroons, and oranges engender a bold color palette with a sculptural quality, as if these bounded fields of color might rise up out of the canvas like reliefs. Branchlike forms frame the canvas’s left edge, guarding the mitochondrial entities within. Concealed in the lower left corner, a progression of loops an swirls evokes her signature, mimicking the burgeoning of the organic forms above. Untitled is both ordered and entropic as Krasner builds up the canvas with bounded marks that each contain their own cosmos. Her brushstrokes are as abstract as they are representational, resulting in an atmospheric, biomorphic scene. The admixture of earthen, natural hues with bursts of color in Untitled is reminiscent of Impressionism, which saw a renewed critical interest in the 1950s. Krasner’s allover tendency in Untitled creates, in the tradition of Impressionism, a “quiet, uniform pattern of strokes…spread over the canvas without climax or emphasis” (L. Krasner, quoted in J. Marter, Women of Abstract Expressionism, exh. cat., Denver Art Museum, Denver, 2016, p. 62). Yet there is nothing quiet about Untitled. Instead, the characters and forms that reside within it create their own sheet music, their own orchestra.
The present work likely emerged from a pivotal period deemed the Earth Green Series, which occupied the artist from 1956-1959, until she shifted into her Umber paintings. Krasner named the series Earth Green at the suggestion of her friend, the critic B.H. Friedman, who wrote of the series in 1958, “In looking at these paintings, listening to them, feeling them, I know that this work—Lee Krasner’s most mature and personal, as well as most joyous and positive, to date…are a stunning affirmation of life” (B.H. Friedman, Lee Krasner: Paintings, Drawings and Collages, exh. cat., Whitechapel Gallery, London, 1965, p. 13). Examples of the Earth Green paintings are held in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and California State University, Long Beach, among other esteemed collections.
Untitled distills the most affecting features of the Earth Green Series, including a monumental scale, verdant pigments, and new representations of space. With its flirtation with naturalism, landscape, and representation generally, the painting is a transitional canvas for Krasner. Instead of focusing solely on art historical debates, Krasner also sought to create paintings about life itself. In a 1960 interview, she observes, “Painting is not separate from life. It is one. It is like asking—do I want to live? My answer is yes—and I paint” (L. Krasner, quoted in E. Landau, Reading Abstract Expressionism: Context and Critique, New Haven, 2005, p. 237). Untitled therefore gives shape, literally and metaphorically, to Krasner’s will to live, and indeed painting’s life-affirming role throughout history.
As such, Krasner managed to create a signature style without uniformity that set her apart from the highly visible “signatures” of Jackson Pollock’s drips, Mark Rothko’s veils of color, or Barnett Newman’s zips. With her signature and her identity painted into the very scaffolding of Untitled, Krasner developed a “fierce insistence on the possibility both of entering high culture on its terms and of making that culture her own” (A. Wagner, “Lee Krasner as L.K.,” Representations, No. 25, Winter 1989, p. 55). Krasner has therefore placed herself inextricably within the painting, as if she is the cartographer of a never-before-seen landscape.
It is no mistake that Untitled and the Earth Green Series, as patchworks of complex emotions, reflect Krasner’s renewed interest in collage as a modernist strategy. According to Helen A. Harrison, director of the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in East Hampton, Krasner’s later work benefitted from “the nature-derived imagery she had first explored in the gestural arabesques of the Earth Green paintings, emphasizing their calligraphic qualities and later sharpening their edges to resemble cutout collage elements (H.A. Harrison, “Lee Krasner,” Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, n.d.). Krasner therefore recalls the primacy of collage in the early twentieth-century avant-gardes, especially Jean Arp’s paper collage Untitled (Squares Arranged According to the Laws of Chance) (1917) and Pablo Picasso’s Cubist assemblage Still Life with Chair Caning (1912). While Arp often relied on chance for his collages, Krasner’s strong marks in Untitled are filled with intentionality. Moreover, Picasso pushed the pictorial to its limits by investing in figuration and appropriation, while Krasner remained focused on abstraction, despite the naturalistic connotations her work skirts.
Finally, Untitled provides insight into the relationship between postwar painting and nature. A 1968 review observes of the Earth Green series, “In these works, large foliate shafts or animal like forms, staring eyes, disembodied limbs, and sac-shaped protuberances fill the canvas in swirling, bursting rhythms. They are both joyous and threatening, affirmative and atavistic in their treatment and effect” (E. Wasserman, “Lee Krasner in Mid-Career,” Artforum, Vol. 6, No. 7, March, 1968, p. 42While the Abstract Expressionists approached nature as something universal and transcendent, Untitled and the Green Earth Series feel rooted, tangible, and particular to Krasner’s circumstances.
You have a very strong inner rhythm. You must always hold that.(P. Mondrian, quoted in D. Seckler, “Oral history interview with Lee Krasner, 1964 Nov. 2—1968 Apr. 11,” Smithsonian Archives of American Art, 1964-1968)
Untitled represents a chance to look into Krasner’s world, which, like art history itself, is multifarious and dynamic. This painting sets her apart from her peers as she eschewed the tenets of any one movement. She was, like the floating, cursive-like marks of Untitled, beyond categorization. As Piet Mondrian, one of Krasner’s inspirations, told her, “You have a very strong inner rhythm. You must always hold that” (P. Mondrian, quoted in D. Seckler, “Oral history interview with Lee Krasner, 1964 Nov. 2—1968 Apr. 11,” Smithsonian Archives of American Art, 1964-1968). And hold it she did, especially in her life’s darkest moments, which became periods of evolution. Untitled is an indispensable mid-career painting that foreshadows her practice for years to come. Both a summation and a departure, Untitled shows Krasner at her bravest.