Bald Eagle
By Lee Krasner, 1955
A riot of torn and cut shapes fills this piece, with pinks, oranges, creams, and dark browns colliding across the surface. Lee Krasner built "Bald Eagle" in 1955 out of an unusual material: her own old artwork. She took paintings and drawings she had set aside, cut them into fragments, and reassembled the pieces into something entirely different. The result feels restless, with fragments jostling in every direction like birds scattering into the air. No single spot holds your eye for long, and that seems to be the point.
Krasner worked at the heart of Abstract Expressionism, the daring American movement that swept through the mid-1900s. She was married to Jackson Pollock, and his enormous fame often kept her own achievements in the shadows for far too long. This collage grew out of a stretch when she was unhappy with her work, so she recycled what she had made before and gave it a second life. Turning rejected material into a new creation carries a quiet kind of honesty, a reminder that starting over can produce something worthwhile.
The name points toward feathers and flight, and once that idea settles in, the tangle of shapes begins to suggest a creature taking form. You might spot a bird pulling itself together, or you might simply enjoy the clash of warm colors. Either way, the piece keeps offering more the longer you stay with it.