LEE KRASNER & ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM
- dannawode3
- Jul 9, 2021
- 6 min read
Lee Krasner –
B. 1908, Brooklyn, NY
D. 1984, New York, NY
Lee Krasner is an American painter and collage artist who was a pioneering figure in the abstract expressionist movement. However, her accomplishments to this day are often overshadowed by the work of her husband, Jackson Pollock. In fact, Pollock in many ways has Krasner to thank for his success as she introduced Pollock to many artists and gallerists, including Willem de Kooning, Hans Hoffman, and Sidney Janis, and most importantly to the art critic Clement Greenberg, who became a champion of Pollock’s work (1).
Childhood
Krasner was born in 1908 in Brooklyn, New York. Her parents were Russian-Jewish refugees who fled Russia to escape the anti-Semitism and the Russo-Japanese War (1). Her father Joseph ran a fish, vegetable, and fruit stand that let her family with little free time and little resources (2). According to Krasner she grew up very poor. Her family practiced Orthodox Judaism and Krasner identified as Jewish her entire life but did not practice as an adult. Hebrew symbols can be found in some of her artwork (2). Lee was originally born Leana Krasner, but she changed her name to a gender-ambiguous Lee in 1940 (3).
Education
Krasner studied art at the Washington Irving High School for Girls in Manhattan, The Women’s Art School of The Cooper Union, and The National Academy of Design. Her schooling taught Krasner to paint in the tradition of European artists from the Renaissance, Baroque, and Dutch Golden Ages eras; focusing on figure painting and nature scenes (2). She did not study modern art until the 1930’s when she took classes from artist and teacher Hans Hofmann. At this time she was influenced by the work of Fauvism and Cubism movements (2). In 1937 after years studying with artists Hans Hofmann, he described her work as “so good you would not know that it was done by a women(3).”
Art Works
Little Images series
This series is made up of about 40 artworks and was created in the late 1940s after Krasner and Pollock moved their farmhouse on Long Island (2). Krasner’s studio was in an upstairs bedroom with limited space, so she began to work small, nothing from this series was larger than three feet by three feet (4). Krasner worked with her canvases flat on a table or on the ground she utilized a drip technique where the paintbrush was held close to the canvas, she layered tick paint often squeezed straight from the tube (2,4). This work is distinct for its multitude of layers creating a mosaic or webbed look. It is also known for the hieroglyphs. The works had symbols in them that Krasner likened to Hebrew letters however, they were not accurate; Krasner was more concerned with creating a language of private symbols that did not communicate any one specific meaning and the Hebrew she studied as a child was an inspiration (4). She painted her work in a grid like fashion and from left to right, like you would read or write (2). Defined by thick impasto and repetitive abstract symbols, these works are recognized as among her most noteworthy contributions to Abstract Expressionism (5).
Stop and Go, 1949
Oil and enamel on pressed wood
45 ¾ in. diameter
Collection: Uris Brothers Foundation Inc., NY
(1)
Noon, 1947
Oil on linen
24 x 30 in.
The Jewish Museum
(1)
Shellflower, 1947
Oil Painting
468 x 557 cm.
private collection
(2)
Collage Paintings
Krasner started her collage paintings in 1951, she would past torn shapes onto some of her earlier large-scale canvases, pinning and rearranging the images till she was happy with the composition; some paintings also received additional layers of paint, placed on top of the collaged fragments with a brush (2). Throughout her career, Lee Krasner’s tireless and fierce self-examination compelled the artist to destroy previous works and reconstitute their elements into new compositions (5). This practice of reclaiming past works of her own, as well as of those of her husband, Jackson Pollock, resulted in many of Krasner’s most novel bodies of work in which elements of painting, drawing, and collage coexist in dramatic compositions (5).
Imperfect Indicative, 1976
collage on canvas
78 x 72 inches, 198.1 x 182.9 cm
© Pollock-Krasner Foundation
Courtesy Kasmin Gallery
(3)
Blue Level, 1955
Private Collection
© The Pollock-Krasner Foundation
Photograph by Diego Flores
(4)
Bald Eagle, 1955
Collection of Audrey Irmas, Los Angeles.
© The Pollock-Krasner Foundation. Photograph by Jonathan Urban.
(4)
Umber Paintings
Painted between 1959 and 1962, Krasner’s Umber Paintings were realized during one of her most ambitious periods of creative production following the sudden and tragic loss of her husband, Jackson Pollock (6). During this time of newfound solitude, Krasner moved into Pollock’s studio at their home in the Springs, East Hampton, which enabled her to experiment on large canvases for the first time. In addition to the increase in scale, this period was also characterized by a further commitment to ‘allover’ compositions, an emphasis on gestural marks and an engagement with the individual psyche (6). Fiercely composed of abstract forms through explosive brushwork in a parsed-down palette of primarily umber, cream and white, this series is considered among Krasner’s most psychoanalytically evocative work (5). From time to time, Krasner incorporated staring eyes, a motif that harkened back to her own earlier work. Other repeated marks suggest foliage, wind, feathers and wings (5). At once unruly and lyrical, each canvas becomes animated by Krasner’s individual and newly powerful backhand gesture, advancing in a rhythmic motion from right to left in vast, curvilinear sweeps. Vigorously thrusting and stabbing with her brush and body, these works present Krasner’s sophisticated integration of sprays and arcs with nodules of paint (5,6).
The Eye is the First Circle, 1960
Oil on Canvas
235.5 x 487.3 cm. (92.7 x 191.9 in.)
(5)
Lee Krasner’s ‘The Eye is the First Circle’ fetches $11.7 million. A defining example of her ‘Umber’ paintings, the work sets a new world auction record for the artist. @Sothebys - May 16, 2019 (5)
Cool white 1959
oil on canvas
182.5 (h) x 290.0 (w) cm
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
© Lee Krasner/ARS. Licensed by Viscopy
(6)
Later Works
Krasner didn’t use bright colors into her paintings until the 1960s, as she lost several loved ones in the 1950s, and during that time of mourning, her artworks took on dark, and sometimes murky, earth tones (7). In 1965 she produced a large number of gouaches using high-key color combinations of pinks and greens or purples and yellows, in which figurative forms and shapes appear ready to burst forth from the canvas (8). In the 1970s, Krasner worked on large horizontal paintings. In some of these paintings she used a hard edge style, and in others she stuck to her more famous style of swirling lines and Cubism-inspired shapes (2). During this timeframe, she used a palette of a few bright colors that contrast with each another. Her large-scale paintings from the 1970s are some of her most appealing work (2). Her work consisted of fierce swooping lines and swollen shapes reminiscent of body parts and in some works she used collaged images of old figure drawings (3,2).
Combat 1965
oil on canvas
179.0 (h) x 410.4 (w) cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
(L7, B6)
Palingenesis, 1971
Oil on canvas
82 x 134 inches
© Pollock-Krasner Foundation
(1)
The Seasons, 1957
Oil and house paint on canvas
92 3/4 × 203 7/8in. (235.6 × 517.8 cm)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (8)
Understanding Lee’s Work:
Krasner’s work evolved a lot over the decades she worked. Krasner described herself as swinging between the ‘poles’ of Picasso and Matisse (8). Regardless of scale, application, and technique her work was always a personal biography of her life. She once stated, “Painting is not separate from life. It is one. (2)” In 1973, Krasner remarked: “My painting is so biographical, if anyone can take the trouble to read it (6).” The paintings in the Umber series stand as cathartic vehicles by which the artist confronted her turbulent relationships and the effects of consuming grief, while further developing into one of the most distinct and significant artists of the Abstract Expressionist era (6).
What set Krasner apart from her contemporaries during the modern art boom is this: She rejected the idea of the artist’s brand battling against the idea of the “signature image,” that being one kind of image or style that would define an artist - and stopped them from being able to go outside of that (7). She found the “signature image” idea rather rigid, as she worked in various forms, and didn’t want to be defined just by one style of painting. “I have never been able to understand the artist whose image never changes,” she once said (7). Krasner also stated, “I change medium to re-stimulate myself. It gets me working and that’s the important thing (9).” She was proud not to have a single style. You had to figure out each painting on its own, she said, or you end up with something “rigid rather than being alive (10).”
Death
Krasner died from natural causes in 1984, at age 75. At her memorial, which was held in the Medieval Sculpture Court at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, art critic Robert Hughes called her the “Mother Courage of Abstract Expressionism (2).”
References:
Not referenced, but gives an excellent timeline of Krasner’s work:
Image Sources:
Комментарии