Krasner, Lee

Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner (Pegasus Library)

This dual portrait examines the art and lives of these talented artists and their productive, yet tempestuous relationship.

For more than a decade Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner devoted their lives to each other, serving in turn as muse, critic, companion, lover, friend, and alter ego. Their romance was stormy--their raucous arguments are the stuff of legend--and their talents were prodigious. Filling the pages of this book are examples of the contributions both artists made to the world of modern art. Readers will learn how Pollock and Krasner's artistry evolved and how they influenced each other's success. Recent developments, such as a revealing biopic and the art world's designation of Pollock as the most expensive artist in the world, bring their portrait fully up to date. While the author acknowledges history's sensationalization of their lives, it is the paintings themselves--revolutionary, innovative, and daring--that tell the most compelling story.

Lee Krasner: A Retrospective

Lee Krasner (Modern Masters Series, Vol. 15)

At nearly every stage of her 15-year marriage to the universally recognized Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner was quicker to respond to stylistic innovations in the art world than her husband. Pollock either didn't catch on to the art-world developments that surrounded him or incorporated changes much later than Krasner did. Some critics read Krasner's dynamic painting style as evidence of her superiority as an artist, but others saw her porousness as a problem, and Pollock's comparative insularity as one key to his uniqueness. In Lee Krasner, Robert Hobbs gracefully analyzes the many forces--of personality, education, and cultural and political milieu--that shaped Krasner's 60-year devotion to art; in the process, he elucidates the many reasons her "artistically constructed self remains provisional."

B.H. Friedman, Pollock's first biographer, introduces the book with a gripping series of intimate, you-are-there diary entries from the long years of his friendship with the two artists. Then Hobbs weaves biography and critical interpretation to develop the main text of the book. The reproductions of Krasner's drawings and paintings (97 in color) are excellent, giving a fair picture of her long career, and there are more than a score of black-and-white archival photos of Krasner and the other early abstract expressionists. The book has a few odd omissions though, such as any reference to Mark Tobey, whose "white writing" paintings and others are so closely related stylistically to Krasner's work of the 1940s. Still, this is the respectful but objective book Krasner's vigorous work and forceful personality deserve. It sheds sympathetic light on her lifelong, intellectually rigorous, artistic questing. --Peggy Moorman

Lee Krasner: Collages and Works on Paper 1933-1974

Lee Krasner: Umber Paintings, 1959-1962

Lee Krasner in Brooklyn.: An article from: New Criterion

This digital document is an article from New Criterion, published by Foundation for Cultural Review on December 1, 2000. The length of the article is 3103 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Lee Krasner in Brooklyn.
Author: Karen Wilkin
Publication: New Criterion (Magazine/Journal)
Date: December 1, 2000
Publisher: Foundation for Cultural Review
Volume: 19 Issue: 4 Page: 49

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Lee Krasner: After Palingenesis

Springs

Lee Krasner Paintings from 1965 to 1970 Organized by John Cheim with Contributions by Edward Albee, Lisa Liebermann, Stephen Westfall January 1991

Lee Krasner: The nature of the body : works from 1933 to 1984