Known for his colorful paintings, Peter Krasnow also developed a significant practice of abstract wood sculptures, ranging from bas-reliefs to free-standing works carved from tree trunks. While on an extended trip to France in the early 1930s, he encountered a truck full of discarded walnut wood scraps that intrigued him with their possibilities for intricate abstract sculptures. Returning to Los Angeles in 1934, he embarked upon a series of totemic walnut sculptures, drawn to the material’s organic warmth and tactility, combined with the immediacy and directness of carving. Krasnow’s particular style of wood sculpture, which he called “demountables,” comprise component parts joined together with precisely fitted, hand-carved grooves. He preferred to work at life-size scale, and his sculptures evoke associations with Cycladic art, Native American totems, African votary figures, and sculptures by Constantin Brancusi and Henri Moore.
Untitled is a prime example of the “Truth-to-Materials” path that Krasnow took in his sculptural oeuvre. Regal in stature, it reflects the artist’s aim to honor and celebrate the intrinsic beauty of nature, particularly in trees that had fallen to the ground. Krasnow pursued what he termed an “honest approach to wood,” in which he preserved the original forms of trees; highlighting the swelling curves of their trunks and limbs, following patterns of wood grain, and smoothing their rough bark to appear like skin, he transformed raw material into art.