Lee Krasner, Sun Woman I story by Laurence de Valmy

This video shares the story behind the painting Sun Woman I created by Lee Krasner. Laurence de Valmy featured Lee Krasner as part of her collaboration with Art Girl Rising and Kahn Gallery to celebrate women abstract expressionnist artists.

Executed in the summer of 1957, a year after the death of her husband Jackson Pollock, Sun Woman I is one of the largest and most important paintings from Krasner’s celebrated Earth Green series. The series represents a rebirth, both literally and metaphorically and is widely considered as the pivotal moment of her career.

In this POST shared on the anniversary of Pollock death, Krasner says “painting is not separate from life. it is like asking - do I want to live? my answer is yes - and I paint”.

It was exhibited at Martha Jackson Gallery in 1958, which prompted art critic Clement Greenberg to offer her a solo show the following year.

In his introduction to the exhibition, Robert Friedman wrote "In looking at these paintings, listening to them, feeling them, I know that this work - Lee Krasner's most mature and personal, as well as most joyous and positive, to date - was done entirely in the last year and a half, a period of profound sorrow for the artist.  The paintings are a stunning affirmation of life.”

Sources: Ninth Street Women, Mary Gabriel
Sotheby’s auction catalog