Semester two | Week Five : Essay research

This week I learned about two seminal female artists, Sonia Delaunay and Lee Krasner.

Tate holds just one piece by Lee Krasner and only one is currently on display by Sonia Delaunay. I noticed paint spatters on the floor and was reminded of photographs of Krasner’s studio, the barn where she painted after her husband Jackson Pollock’s death, the floor that was removed to reveal his signature paint spatters. These were mere traces, of course, but a reminder that the act of painting is very different from the serene gallery atmosphere where the work has ended up. I thought about how much these two women had in common, and noticed that although at first sight the work seems very different ― Krasner’s wild gestural oils on canvas, Delaunay’s considered, delicate watercolour and print on paper ― they share an organic fluidity in movement, a response to landscape, a capturing of mood; even the colour palettes are more similar than first glance would suggest (although the much more vibrant image I found in my research of a printed edition of the concertina book implies that possibly the Delaunay watercolours have become more muted with time).

I sat for a long time in front of each work, sketching in watercolour pencils and observing the line and form and placement of colour. My eye interpreted a moon, then another; the figure of a woman dancing, an eye, a leaf, an infinity swirl. It was only reading the descriptor afterwards that I was instructed to see woods (I’d forgotten the title of the piece is Gothic Landscape: Krasner named it a couple of years after painting, and I was reminded of reading that she encouraged Pollock to name rather than number his paintings, mindful that it would help them to sell. A canny business woman.) I’m interested by the use of colour in the Delaunay; especially that much of the text is too pale to read ― this is a visual depiction of poetry, rather than a book to be read perhaps. The shaky edges to the shapes that form the painting brought to mind blurred landscapes seen from a train window.

I’m exploring more about colour theory; I’m excited about quilts as art (recalling V&A’s 2010 exhibition) and think Sonia Delaunay would definitely be making tote bag art . . .(and approving of ￡40 for a David Shrigley tea towel! Art/commerce overlap is nothing new). I enjoyed Cecilia Vicuna’s Brain Forest Quipu in the Turbine Hall, which had me thinking about Rapunzel . . .