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Slivers drawn in black chalk, painted with vibrant green, yellow, and red, or left white are interwoven in this square, abstract composition. The painted areas are too small to make out any objects, and the drawn areas are rounded or angular shapes. The overall impression is that shards from a painting, drawing, or blank canvas have been reassembled like bits of broken mirror. The artist signed and dated the lower center, “Lee Krasner ’76.”

Lee Krasner

Imperative, 1976

Not on View

Medium

oil, charcoal and paper on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 127 x 127 cm (50 x 50 in.)

framed: 131.1 x 131.8 x 5 cm (51 5/8 x 51 7/8 x 1 15/16 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Victor Thaw, in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art

Accession Number

1991.59.1

Artists / Makers

Lee Krasner (artist) American, 1908 - 1984

Image Use

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Inscription

lower center: Lee Krasner '76

Provenance

(Pace Gallery); purchased 1977 by Eugene Thaw; gift 1991 of Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Thaw to the NGA.[1]

[1] Provenance according to Art for the Nation : Gifts in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, Exh. cat., Washington, 1991: 454-455.

Associated Names

Thaw, Eugene V., Mr. and Mrs.

Exhibition History

1977: Lee Krasner: Eleven Ways to Use the Words to See, The Pace Gallery, New York, 1977, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

1983: Lee Krasner: A Retrospective, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Chrysler Museum, Norfolk; Phoenix Art Museum; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1983-1985, fig. 152.

1986: Lee Krasner Collages, Robert Miller Gallery, New York, 1986, unnumbered catalogue, repro. (unpublished checklist, no. 14).

1991: Art for the Nation: Gifts in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1991, unnumbered catalogue, color repro.

1999: Lee Krasner, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Des Moines Art Center; Akron Art Museum; Brooklyn Museum of Art, 1999-2001, pl. 91.

2019: Lee Krasner: Living Colour, Barbican Art Gallery, London; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main; Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern; Museo Guggenheim Bilbao, Bilbao, 2019 - 2021, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

Bibliography

1977: Cavaliere, Barbara. "Lee Krasner." Arts Magazine 51 (April 1977): 26.

1977: Kusp, Donald B. "Lee Krasner at Pace." Art in America 65 (November-December 1977): 136.

1977: Prown, Jules David, and Barbara Rose. American Painting From the Colonial Period to the Present. New York, 1977: 248, repro. 249 (same text as Rose 1980).

1977: Rose, Barbara. "Lee Krasner and the Origins of Abstract Expressionism." Arts Magazine 51 (February 1977): repro. on cover.

1980: Rose, Barbara. American Painting: The Twentieth Century. New York, 1980: 130, repro. 131 (same text as Prown and Rose 1977).

1984: Vetrocq, Marcia E. "An Independent Tack: Lee Krasner." Art in America 72 (May 1984): repro. 145.

1991: Art for the Nation: Gifts in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1991: 454-455, color repro.

1996: Wagner, Anne Middleton. Three Artists (Three Women): Modernism and the Art of Hesse, Krasner, and O’Keeffe. Berkeley, 1996: color pl. 19.