The Civet

Lee Krasners The Civet from 1962 is a lithograph that demonstrates the Abstract Expressionist painters mastery of the print medium and her ability to translate the gestural energy and organic forms of her paintings into the graphic constraints of lithography. The civet, a small mammal native to Africa and Asia that is known for its musk and its cat-like appearance, provided Krasner with a subject that allowed her to combine the animal energy of her best paintings with the organic forms that distinguish her work from the more geometric abstraction of her contemporaries. Krasner, whose career was long overshadowed by that of her husband Jackson Pollock, produced a body of work that is now recognized as one of the most accomplished and innovative in the history of Abstract Expressionism, and her prints demonstrate the same formal intelligence and chromatic sensitivity that distinguish her paintings. The lithograph medium, with its capacity for both sharp lines and tonal washes, allows Krasner to create an image that combines the gestural freedom of her paintings with the structural clarity that printmaking demands. The year 1962 places this lithograph in the period following Pollocks death in 1956, when Krasner was producing some of her most powerful work and establishing her independent reputation as an artist of the first rank.

Krasners lithographs demonstrate that her formal intelligence and gestural energy could be translated into the print medium without loss of power, and The Civet exemplifies the combination of animal energy and organic form that distinguishes her work from the more geometric abstraction of her contemporaries. Her prints influenced the development of Abstract Expressionist printmaking.

A 1962 lithograph by Krasner depicting a civet with gestural energy and organic forms that translate her Abstract Expressionist painting into the lithographic medium with structural clarity and dynamic presence.