On August 11, 1956, Jackson Pollock died in a car accident. Lee Krasner (his wife and lesser known artist) moved into his barn. Still to this day, she has not been correctly placed in the art history canon as a great painter of abstraction. Krasner used this period of pain and grief to produce her Umber series. Umber, making reference to a color, being a natural pigment resembling but darker than ocher, normally dark yellowish-brown in color (raw umber) or dark brown when roasted (burnt umber). Finally, Krasner out of the shadow of her alcoholic husband, she produced some of her most compelling work. 

I frequently turn to artists in grief or illness. I notice markable changes in their technique, their choice of materials, and subject. The contrast of color selection and even style changes are endlessly fascinating. Krasner noted her own personal storytelling aspects of the paintings in 1973 saying, “My painting is so biographical, if anyone can take the trouble to read it.” 

What might it mean to read a painting? When I look at a painting, I take a cue from my lifeguard training when we would have to scan the pool constantly, back and forth, back and forth, for hours on end in the summertime. I look at paintings and scan them, back and forth, back and forth. I sit with them like I sat as a lifeguard. I look for things that might be different as a lifeguard might look for someone in distress. How might we look for the difference in paintings? Is the artist consistent? How do they achieve such consistency? Especially in abstraction, humans struggle to comprehend any kind of cohesion. Here, Krasner uses a consistent palette, and strikes a balance of brushwork in the panoramic canvas. Back and forth, back and forth, as the tides go.

Moontide, from 1961, struck me as unique among the series for the canvas shape, a panoramic form. From a 2017 article featuring Moontide, the author notices “At once unruly and lyrical, Moontide, 1961, is animated by Krasner’s individual and newly powerful backhand gesture, advancing in a rhythmic motion from right to left in vast, curvilinear sweeps that result in interlaced bold forms of black, umber and white.”

Much like grief, it ebbs and flows like Moontide. I recently have been doing my advanced scuba certification and learning more about the movement of water on our planet. We forget we are moving. Our planet is very much alive and in constant motion through space, in the oceans, our rivers, our lakes, and our fires. We forget how much is out of our control and maybe more aware of that sentiment more than ever with variants of COVID19 still moving through time and space and our bodies. Some might not want to face the movement. We may want to choose stillness and silence. Or aloneness. One of the skills in diving is equalizing as you descend deeper in motion, you must equalize before you sense pain. It brings me much more peace to recognize the constant movement and find equalization in Krasner’s painting. I think that is what attracts me to great abstract painters like Krasner, Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler or Jay DeFeo. They are great equalizers through pain, struggle, and adversity. Their work stands alone, constantly moving, offering up peace. 

In Summer and Fall 2019, Lee Krasner: Living Color was featured in London and Frankfurt.

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