Little Images

When Krasner moved to Springs, in the fall of 1945, she was emerging from an artistic impasse: her father's death the year before had left her unable to paint anything but what she called her “grey slabs.” Now, suddenly surrounded by nature and with a view across the salt marshes to Accabonac Creek, a new kind of imagery was coming through. She began to work on her Little Images—vibrant, jewel-like abstractions pulsing with an even rhythm. In some, she layered the paint thickly with a palette knife and worked into it with a stiff paintbrush; in others, she created a lace pattern of paint thinned down with turpentine in a can.

When the bitter winter of 1947 forced Krasner to work in the living room, she decided to turn two old wagon wheels into mosaic tables, using leftover tesserae as well as bits of costume jewelry, keys, coins, and broken glass. One was exhibited at the Bertha Schaefer Gallery in September 1948, together with some of her new, “hieroglyphic” Little Images.