Artist: Lee Krasner (American, 1908-1984). Title: "Composition". Medium: Conte crayon on paper. Date: Composed c1940. Dimensions: Overall size: 10 x 7 in. (254 x 178 mm). Image size: 9 x 6 1/4 in. (229 x 159 mm). Lot Note(s): Signed lower right. Textured tan wove paper. Good to very good condition. Provenance: Please contact Joe Stanford (joseph@stanfordauctioneers.com). Comment(s): Undoubtedly a study for a larger work. In the early 1930s Krasner regularly visited the Museum of Modern Art in New York to analyze, absorb and emulate the works of the European Modernists: de Chirico, Miro and Henri Matisse were among her favorites. During this period Krasner was also taking life drawing classes, under various instructors and producing studies of the nude in pencil, conte crayon, ink and charcoal. In 1937 Krasner enrolled at the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts and, for the first time, became seriously engaged with Cubism (courtesy National Gallery of Australia). She became one of the most influential American abstract expressionist painters in the second half of the 20th century. On October 25, 1945, she married artist Jackson Pollock, who was also influential in the abstract expressionism movement. She was born Lena Krassner (outside the family she was known as Lenore Krasner) in Brooklyn, New York to Russian Jewish immigrant parents from Bessarabia. Image copyright © Lee Krasner/ARS. [28341-1-2400]