14 Lee Krasner Gold or Silver signed and dated "Lee Krasner '54" lower left oil and paper collage on Masonite 48 x 61 3/4 in. (121.9 x 156.8 cm.) Executed in 1954.
Provenance The Artist Susanne Hilberry Gallery, Inc., Birmingham, Michigan Edith Emerman Marwil, Michigan Private Collection (thence by descent) Sotheby's, New York, May 11, 2006, lot 166 Acquired at the above sale by the present owner Exhibited New York, Stable Gallery, Lee Krasner Collages, September - October 1955 London, Whitechapel Art Gallery; New York, City Art Gallery; Hull, Ferens Art Gallery; Nottingham, Victoria Street Gallery; Manchester, City Art Gallery; Cardiff, Arts Council Gallery, Lee Krasner Paintings, Drawings and Collages, September 1965 - October 1966, no. 71 Miami-Dade Community College; Glenside, Beaver College; Charleston, Gibbes Art Gallery, Lee Krasner Selections from 1946 - 1972, March - July 1974, no. 17 (illustrated) Washington, D.C., Corcoran Gallery of Art; State College, Pennsylvania State University; Waltham, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Lee Krasner Collages and Works on Paper 1933 - 1974, January 11 - February 15, 1975, no. 42, p. 36 (illustrated), pp. 56-57 (installation view illustrated) Birmingham, Michigan, Susanne Hilberry Gallery, Lee Krasner Paintings, November - December 1977 Literature Griffin Smith, "Lee Krasner - A Re-evaluation at Last", Miami Herald, March 17, 1974, p. G10 (illustrated) Ellen G. Landau, Lee Krasner A Catalogue Raisonné, New York, 1995, no. 279, p. 140 (illustrated) Catalogue Essay Lee Krasner painted Gold or Silver in 1954 and included the work in her highly acclaimed exhibition at the Stable Gallery in New York City- an exhibition lauded by art critic Clement Greenberg as one of the most important shows of the 1950’s. Bursting with depth and color, Gold or Silver is rendered with the combined medium of paper and oil paint applied to Masonite board. In 1953, after tearing up her own works on paper and throwing them in a jumble onto the floor, Krasner explained that she noticed that “something exciting was happening.” (Cindy Nemser, Art Talk, 1975) Beginning with a small scale collage titled Black and White Collage from 1953-1954, originally in the collection of the photographer Hans Namuth Krasner explored the potential of both her and her husband Jackson Pollock’s discarded, marked up, paper, studio scraps. Krasner and Pollock favorited Douglass Howell’s paper for their ink drawings; Howell was well known in the art world for producing wove paper without glue, sizing or chemicals: what resulted was a dense paper with rough edges and an energetic surface which, in combination with Krasner’s collage practice, created dynamic depth within her compositions. Krasner also incorporated pieces of Pollock’s torn rice paper ink drawings into her paintings- the fine and absorbent nature of rice paper was pointed out to Pollock by sculptor Tony Smith in 1951. Beginning with a variety of textured, paper collage elements, Krasner soon expanded to cannibalizing canvas. Krasner further elaborates on her exploration into the practice of collage by saying, “Well, it started with drawings. Then I took my canvases and cut and began doing the same thing, and that ended in my collage show in 1955” and the creation and public display of the present lot, Gold or Silver. (Lee Krasner quoted in Barbaralee Diamonstein, Inside New York’s Art World, New York, 1979, p. 205) The fragments of drawings that comprise the present lot allude to Krasner’s art historical interest in medieval mosaic techniques and the Cubist flattening and interlocking of forms. These collaged compositions represent Krasner’s means of re-activating discarded works, which established a path from destruction to highly successful creations such as Gold or Silver; “Collage, moreover, permitted Krasner to find a way out of an impasse that had been troubling her for some years, a problem exacerbated by the division between color and line studies in the Hofmann School. That was the problem of how to create shapes without separating line from color, or simply using color to fill in contour in the manner of aca
14 Lee Krasner Gold or Silver signed and dated "Lee Krasner '54" lower left oil and paper collage on Masonite 48 x 61 3/4 in. (121.9 x 156.8 cm.) Executed in 1954.
Provenance The Artist Susanne Hilberry Gallery, Inc., Birmingham, Michigan Edith Emerman Marwil, Michigan Private Collection (thence by descent) Sotheby's, New York, May 11, 2006, lot 166 Acquired at the above sale by the present owner Exhibited New York, Stable Gallery, Lee Krasner Collages, September - October 1955 London, Whitechapel Art Gallery; New York, City Art Gallery; Hull, Ferens Art Gallery; Nottingham, Victoria Street Gallery; Manchester, City Art Gallery; Cardiff, Arts Council Gallery, Lee Krasner Paintings, Drawings and Collages, September 1965 - October 1966, no. 71 Miami-Dade Community College; Glenside, Beaver College; Charleston, Gibbes Art Gallery, Lee Krasner Selections from 1946 - 1972, March - July 1974, no. 17 (illustrated) Washington, D.C., Corcoran Gallery of Art; State College, Pennsylvania State University; Waltham, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Lee Krasner Collages and Works on Paper 1933 - 1974, January 11 - February 15, 1975, no. 42, p. 36 (illustrated), pp. 56-57 (installation view illustrated) Birmingham, Michigan, Susanne Hilberry Gallery, Lee Krasner Paintings, November - December 1977 Literature Griffin Smith, "Lee Krasner - A Re-evaluation at Last", Miami Herald, March 17, 1974, p. G10 (illustrated) Ellen G. Landau, Lee Krasner A Catalogue Raisonné, New York, 1995, no. 279, p. 140 (illustrated) Catalogue Essay Lee Krasner painted Gold or Silver in 1954 and included the work in her highly acclaimed exhibition at the Stable Gallery in New York City- an exhibition lauded by art critic Clement Greenberg as one of the most important shows of the 1950’s. Bursting with depth and color, Gold or Silver is rendered with the combined medium of paper and oil paint applied to Masonite board. In 1953, after tearing up her own works on paper and throwing them in a jumble onto the floor, Krasner explained that she noticed that “something exciting was happening.” (Cindy Nemser, Art Talk, 1975) Beginning with a small scale collage titled Black and White Collage from 1953-1954, originally in the collection of the photographer Hans Namuth Krasner explored the potential of both her and her husband Jackson Pollock’s discarded, marked up, paper, studio scraps. Krasner and Pollock favorited Douglass Howell’s paper for their ink drawings; Howell was well known in the art world for producing wove paper without glue, sizing or chemicals: what resulted was a dense paper with rough edges and an energetic surface which, in combination with Krasner’s collage practice, created dynamic depth within her compositions. Krasner also incorporated pieces of Pollock’s torn rice paper ink drawings into her paintings- the fine and absorbent nature of rice paper was pointed out to Pollock by sculptor Tony Smith in 1951. Beginning with a variety of textured, paper collage elements, Krasner soon expanded to cannibalizing canvas. Krasner further elaborates on her exploration into the practice of collage by saying, “Well, it started with drawings. Then I took my canvases and cut and began doing the same thing, and that ended in my collage show in 1955” and the creation and public display of the present lot, Gold or Silver. (Lee Krasner quoted in Barbaralee Diamonstein, Inside New York’s Art World, New York, 1979, p. 205) The fragments of drawings that comprise the present lot allude to Krasner’s art historical interest in medieval mosaic techniques and the Cubist flattening and interlocking of forms. These collaged compositions represent Krasner’s means of re-activating discarded works, which established a path from destruction to highly successful creations such as Gold or Silver; “Collage, moreover, permitted Krasner to find a way out of an impasse that had been troubling her for some years, a problem exacerbated by the division between color and line studies in the Hofmann School. That was the problem of how to create shapes without separating line from color, or simply using color to fill in contour in the manner of aca
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