Introducing:
Lee Krasner

Krasner was politically active during the 1930s and 40s attending numerous protests to demand union recognition and wage increases. On 1 December 1936, Krasner joined a large group of artists and artists’ models in a strike to protest the imminent redundancy of 500 WPA workers. Following violent clashes with the police, several protesters were arrested, including Krasner, who booked herself in as the American Impressionist painter Mary Cassat. In prison, Krasner met the artist Mercedes Carles (later Mercedes Matter) with who she would form a close friendship.

While Krasner was gaining recognition and respect within the New York art scene, she continued to rail against the discrimination rife within the male dominated world of artists, writers and critics in the city. Although she faced this with her usual tenacity, Krasner was frequently overshadowed by surrounding male artists – notably by her partner, and later husband, the artist Jackson Pollock. As one of the first generation Abstract Expressionists, Krasner’s fight for recognition as a woman artist helped open up opportunities for future female Abstract painters including Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell and Helen Frankenthaler.

In 1956, Pollock began a public affair with the painter Ruth Kligman, and his alcoholism had worsened significantly. Invited by friends to visit them in Europe, Krasner took the opportunity for a break and left Pollock behind in East Hampton. While in France, Krasner received a telephone call from Clement Greenberg to inform her that Pollock had crashed his car and died. At the age of forty-seven, Krasner found herself a widow. Despite the immense period of grief that followed Pollock’s death, Krasner’s artistic output never waned, and the paintings made at this time were described as a ‘stunning affirmation of life’.

A year after Pollock’s death, Krasner decided to move her studio into the barn in Springs. Although it must have been a space loaded with painful memories, it was also the largest working area on the property which finally allowed her to work on a bigger scale. Ever practical, Krasner explained ‘there was no point letting [the studio in the barn] stand empty’, demonstrating her dedication to her artistic practice, even in the wake of personal tragedy. The paintings swelled in size, with canvases reaching up to 4.4m in length. Following the death of her mother in 1959, Krasner experienced severe insomnia and worked at night under the artificial light of her studio. Due to the lack of natural light, Krasner refused to work with colour and instead used a purposefully limited palette of raw and burnt umber on canvas. The result was a powerful series of paintings that her friend, the poet Richard Howard dubbed her ‘Night Journeys’.

In 1960, after overcoming her insomnia, Krasner allowed colour to burst back into her painting. A riot of dissonant hues emerged – fuschia pink, hot orange, vibrant Kelly green – in what Krasner called her ‘Primary Series’. Continuing to work at a large scale – some of the canvases were almost 5 metres in length – these eye-watering colours confronted the viewer in vast unflinching planes. Of these new paintings, the art critic Robert Hughes said: ‘their blossoming was remarkable. In fact “blossoming” is hardly the word, for it suggests a soft, floral, ethereal event, adjectives one would not pick for the tough paintings, often full of barely controlled anger, that she was to produce after 1960… Is there a less “feminine” woman artist of her generation? Probably not’. Krasner was working with frenetic energy at this point in her career, producing more than 160 paintings and experimental works on paper in 7 years. Krasner was now achieving widespread recognition and respect for her works – including her first survey exhibition organised by Bryan Robertson at the Whitechapel Gallery in London in 1965 – which was met with very positive reviews.

In 1973, Lee Krasner: Large Paintings opened at the Whitney Museum of Art in New York, a significant milestone in Krasner’s professional career. In the accompanying catalogue, curator Marcia Tucker said: ‘Today, Lee Krasner is considered a prototype by many younger painters. She is encouraging and generous, tough and strong-willed, gregarious and adventurous, full of anecdotes and ideas. Most important, the enthusiasm for her work continues to grow as the contributions she has made are being fully realised’. Krasner’s significance as an inspiration for younger artists and practitioners cannot be understated, and Tucker’s words resonate more clearly now than ever. In our current moment, museums and galleries are seeking to address the lack of diversity within their collections, questioning the canonical view of art history by foregrounding the work of women. Female artists are fetching record prices at auction and 2019 promises exhibitions of women were often marginalised and ignored at the expense of their male counterparts.

In her recent book Ninth Street Women, author Mary Gabriel says of the female Abstract Expressionist painters: ‘these women changed American art and society, tearing up the prevailing social code and replacing it with a doctrine of liberation’ , a statement that is exemplified when read in the context of Krasner’s life. Pursuing a career in art against the ruins of the American Depression and the Second World War and constantly working against the misogyny of the New York art scene, Krasner faced many challenges, yet continued making work against all obstacles. One of the most tenacious artists of the twentieth century, Krasner demonstrates the fundamental role that these avant-garde women played in shaping our current landscape and we are delighted to give her voice the platform it richly deserves.