Eleven Ways

In 1974 Krasner came across an old portfolio of her work, and inside was a trove of Hofmann School drawings, which she decided to use as raw material for a new series of collages. She took to these drawings with scissors, explaining that she wanted “precise incision.” She cut the works into angular shapes and arranged them into dynamic compositions on canvas, the forms mirroring the geometries of her original drawings. She incorporated the spectral images that appeared on the reverse of some of the sheets, and left other areas of the canvas blank, echoing the empty space around the nude model.

The collages were exhibited at Pace Gallery in 1977 under the collective title Eleven Ways to Use the Words to See, and she gave each individual work the title of a different verb form. Critics commented on her inventive use of her early work.