Lee Krasner

Re-Echo

Re-Echo is one of seventeen paintings from Lee Krasner’s Earth Green series. The group of works, Re-Echo was among the first of this series and is an excellent example of the shift in Krasner’s practice after the sudden death of her husband, Jackson Pollock, in the late summer of 1956. The title further emphasizes this moment of change, when Krasner was able to move away from Pollock’s aesthetic influence and return to her own creative voice.

Re-Echo is founded on feminine generative power. The canvas is dense with rounded, flesh-colored forms which are dotted with smaller shapes suggestive of fruit and foliage. However these suggestions of new life are balanced with the shadow of mortality.

The inclusion of ocher and brown that fill the negative spaces of Re-Echo function as a reminder that all life with inevitably suffer death and decay. Additionally, mundane hues serves as a masculine counterbalance to feminine palette of blush and rose. Re-Echo is a painting of sensitivity and nuance, with which Krasner both celebrates the possibilities of the future and laments her past.