Lee Krasner

Lee Krasner. She was a pivotal figure in the Abstract Expressionist movement, whose career spanned over five decades and evolved through various styles including Cubism and collage. A formidable artist and critic, she played a central role in the New York School while navigating the complexities of her marriage to fellow painter Jackson Pollock. Her work is celebrated for its rhythmic energy, formal innovation, and profound influence on postwar American art.

Early life and education

Born Lena Krassner to a Orthodox Jewish family in Brooklyn, she demonstrated an early passion for art. She pursued formal training at Washington Irving High School, which offered an intensive art program for girls. Determined to become an artist, she then attended the Cooper Union and later the National Academy of Design, where she studied under instructors like Charles Webster Hawthorne. Her foundational education was further shaped by classes at the Art Students League of New York, immersing her in the traditional techniques that she would later radically deconstruct.

Career and artistic development

During the Great Depression, she worked for the WPA Federal Art Project, creating public art and murals. Her artistic direction shifted dramatically after encountering the groundbreaking work of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, as well as the influx of European modernists in New York, such as those associated with the Museum of Modern Art. She studied with the influential teacher Hans Hofmann, whose push towards abstraction and critique of her work as "too good for a woman" galvanized her resolve. By the early 1940s, she was fully engaged with the emerging avant-garde scene, participating in important group exhibitions with organizations like the American Abstract Artists and forging connections with key figures like Willem de Kooning and Arshile Gorky.

Marriage to Jackson Pollock

She met Jackson Pollock in 1941, and they married in 1945, moving to Springs, East Hampton on Long Island. This period placed her at the epicenter of the Abstract Expressionism movement, but her own work was often overshadowed by the meteoric rise and celebrity of her husband. She managed his career and their household while continuing to paint, at times destroying her own canvases in frustration. Their relationship, marked by Pollock's struggles with alcoholism and infidelity, was intensely turbulent. Following his death in a car crash in 1956, she dedicated herself to preserving and promoting his legacy, becoming the executive of his estate, while also embarking on a powerful new phase of her own creativity.

Later work and legacy

In the years after Pollock's death, she produced some of her most acclaimed series, including the expansive Umber Paintings and vibrant Primary Series. These works, characterized by a renewed sense of scale and raw emotional power, solidified her reputation as a major independent force. She continued to experiment with collage, reworking fragments of her own earlier drawings and paintings. Her significance was increasingly recognized through major retrospectives, such as a landmark 1983 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, making her one of the few female artists of her generation to receive that honor. She is remembered as a crucial bridge between early modernism and the New York avant-garde, influencing subsequent generations of artists including Helen Frankenthaler and Elizabeth Murray.

Collections and exhibitions

Her work is held in the permanent collections of major institutions worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Tate Modern, and the National Gallery of Art. Significant posthumous exhibitions have been organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Barbican Centre. In 2019, a comprehensive retrospective co-organized by the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao toured internationally, reaffirming her enduring stature in the canon of 20th-century art.

Category:American painters Category:Abstract Expressionist artists Category:Artists from New York City