Lee Krasner Was Jackson Pollock's Wife & A Great Artist As Well

Lee Krasner was American Abstract Expressionist painter. She was born on October 27, 1908 and passed away on June 19, 1984.

She was educated at Cooper Union, National Academy of Design. Krasner also received an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from Stony Brook University, as well as, a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Krasner developed her unique abstract style by the late 1930s after studying with influential teacher Hans Hofmann, integrating Cubist influences into her paintings.

She was married to Jackson Pollock from 1945 to 1956 when they divorced.

Krasner’s Marriage to Pollock

Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner met in 1936 at an exhibition where both of their works were being displayed. They were immediately drawn to each other’s artistic styles and began a relationship.

In 1941, they moved in together and married in 1945. At that point, Krasner put her own artistic career on hold to support Pollock and promote his work.

She encouraged him to move to a farmhouse in Springs, Long Island in 1945 where he could focus on painting without distractions.

Jackson thrived in this new environment. It allowed Pollock to develop his drip style painting technique that made him a renowned figure of the Abstract Expressionist movement.

Krasner played a crucial role in Pollock’s success. She believed in his talent completely and inspired him to keep painting. In spite of the fact, that Pollock was prone to struggles with alcoholism and deep self-doubt.

She also managed their finances, organized his studio, and was a fierce advocate of his work. Krasner’s devotion to Pollock’s art allowed him to pour himself into his painting. This lead to Pollock to produce his most significant works.

After Pollock’s death in 1956, Krasner re-emerged as a highly influential artist in her own right. She produced large-scale abstract paintings and collages that received critical acclaim.

Examples below…

‘Living Color’ by Lee Krasner

‘Night Creatures’ by Lee Krasner

Photo Gallery of Lee Krasner’s Art

A breakthrough in Lee Krasner’s art career came when she executed the idea “Little Images” paintings. These were created between 1946-1950.

The ‘Little Images’ had several key characteristics:

Small scale, with canvases typically around 2 feet or less in size.

She created dense, textured surfaces achieved through thick impasto, layering of paint with the use of palette knives. The surfaces were rich and heavily worked.

She used abstract imagery reminiscent of ‘hieroglyphics’ which consisted of symbolic shapes, marks, and calligraphic lines. There were also grids, squares, triangles, circles, and swirling lines that reminder Krasner of the shells she collected.

Some of the Little Images works had an “all-over” quality without a clear focal point, while others were loosely structured around a grid pattern.

The palette ranged from delicate pastels to bold contrasts of black and white. Additionally, influences included Cubism, Surrealism and Krasner’s interest in ancient writing systems like Hebrew.

So, in these small but highly textured paintings, Krasner developed a distinctive abstract vocabulary of dense patterning, calligraphic markings, and a textured application of paint.

http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/edelman/edelman9-15-08.asp

Photo Gallery of Krasner and Pollock

After Pollock’s Death in 1956

Once her husband passed, Lee Krasner entered a prolific time for her art. She began creating very large paintings expressing her grief at the loss of Jackson Pollock.

In the late 1950s to 1960s, her style shifted again towards hard-edge lines and bright contrasting colors in mostly large horizontal canvases.

Krasner finally gained broader recognition in the 1970s as a ‘rediscovery’ in the feminist art movement gaining her honors and major retrospectives before her death in 1984.

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