Lee Krasner
American , 1908-1984
Primary Series: Pink Stone, 1969
lithograph, ed. 63/100
SBMA, Gift of Mr. Stanford Robertson
1974.46a
RESEARCH PAPER
One of the most radical painters of the first generation of abstract expressionists, Lee Krasner devoted six decades of her life to making art. Eclipsed during her lifetime by her flamboyant and alcoholic husband, the action artist Jackson Pollock, Krasner was criticized for derivative work and her failure to develop a distinctive signature style. Since her death in 1984, art critics have praised Krasner for her unique and unflagging commitment to abstract expressionism even as the art world shifted its focus to Pop, Minimalism and Color Field painting.
The Work
Primary Series: Pink Stone was created in 1969 during what has been referred to as Krasner’s “mature” period: She turned 61 that year. The work is an abstract lithograph featuring freely applied, dark pink ink printed onto smooth surfaced, white paper. The color pattern evokes rhythmic and dynamic movement. One can almost feel the action of the artist’s hand as the ink flows from her brush. This gestural drawing is a direct and vigorous encounter between the artist and observer. We see the droplets left by the splashing paint as her hand passes forcefully above the stone. The lines of color swing off the paper connecting us to an image of the artist’s arm swinging freely, brush in hand, ink flowing from the tip like an extension of her mood, her psyche, her moment. The mood is light, almost happy. The sinuous, overall composition combined with the monochromatic color creates an organic image reminiscent of intertwining vines or rapidly flowing water. It is the creation of an artist comfortable with her own originality, one who has moved beyond the dark images of an earlier, more traumatic period.
Technique and materials
Lithography is a mechanical plano-graphic process in which the printing and non-printing areas of the plate are all at the same level. This differs from intaglio and relief processes in which the design is cut into the printing block. Lithography was invented in 1798 as a process to print sheet music. Based on the chemical repellence of oil and water, designs are drawn or painted with greasy ink or crayons on a specially prepared limestone block. The stone is then moistened with water, which it absorbs in areas not covered by the crayon. An oily ink, applied with a roller, adheres only to the drawing and is repelled by the wet parts of the stone. The print is then made by pressing paper against the inked stone.
Abstract Expressionism
Abstract Expressionism is now considered to be the first American artistic movement of international importance. The term Abstract Expressionism was originally used to describe the work of Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning, and Jackson Pollock. Artists of this movement express self purely through the use of abstract, yet meaningful, form and color. It is non-representational and non-objective. Stated more simply, no real objects are represented. The movement can be more or less divided into two groups: Action Painting, typified by artists such as Pollock, de Kooning, Franz Kline, and Philip Guston who stressed the physical action involved in painting, and Color Field Painting, practiced by Mark Rothko, Morris Louis, Helen Frankenthaler, and Kenneth Noland who were primarily concerned with exploring the effects of pure color on a flat surface.
Biography
Born 1908 in Brooklyn, New York, Krasner was the fourth of five children. Her parents, Russian Jews from Odessa, immigrated to escape Czarist pogroms. She knew from early childhood that she wanted to become an artist. Attending first the Women’s Art School of the Cooper Union and the National Academy of Design, Krasner later studied with the German ex-patriot and modernist master, Hans Hofmann. Artists whose work she emulated in the early years include Modrian, Cezanne, and Picasso. During the depression she was employed by the WPA Federal Art Project as a mural designer.
By the 1940’s, Krasner was a member of the American Abstract Artists and a well-connected and respected avant-garde painter in the New York art scene. She married Jackson Pollock in 1945. Despite his alcoholism and dependence, she devoted herself to his genius, introducing him to important friends in the art world and encouraging his creativity. During this period, Krasner continued to paint although on a much smaller scale than Pollock. At the time, her work was criticized as being a less worthy derivative of her husband’s large “drip” paintings. In retrospect, art historians now view the Krasner-Pollock relationship as an artistic symbiosis with an active give and take of both technique and inspiration. It is very likely that without Krasner, Jackson Pollock would not have become an icon of the modern art world.
After Pollock’s 1956 death in an automobile accident and the loss of her mother in 1959, Krasner plunged into a deep depression. Her paintings became large, dark, and chaotic with recurrent references to the evil eye of Jewish folklore. By the mid- 1960’s she seemed to have passed through her grief and was producing large vibrant celebrations of color and movement.
Although Krasner was a famously testy and irascible interviewee, she did leave many interesting comments on her work.
Krasner stated that “all her work was autobiographical,” if the viewer only took the time to search for the clues.
“I have never been able to understand the artist whose image never changes.”
“All my work keeps going like a pendulum; it seems to swing back to something I was involved with earlier, or it moves between horizontality and verticality, circularity, or a composite of them. For me, I suppose, that change is the only constant.”
“Painting... in which the inner and the outer man are inseparable, transcends technique, transcends subject and moves into the realm of the inevitable.”
Painting, for me, when it really 'happens,' is as miraculous as any natural phenomenon – as say, a lettuce leaf. By 'happens,' I mean the painting in which the inner aspect of man and his outer aspects interlock.”
“I never violate an inner rhythm. I loathe to force anything... I don't know if the inner rhythm is Eastern or Western. I know it is essential for me. I listen to it and I stay with it. I have always been this way. I have regards for the inner voice.”
Near the end of her life Krasner began to receive recognition within the art world apart from her highly visible role as Pollock’s “art widow” and tireless champion. Chronicling a very personal and emotional journey, Krasner’s work represents one woman’s distinctive effort to deal artistically with ideas of self, life, loss, and nature.
Bibliography
May, Stephen. Out of Pollock’s Shadow. Art & Antiques, November 2000, pages 66- 71.
Wagner, Anne Middleton. Three Artists (Three Women). University of California Press. Berkeley.1996
Rose, Barbara. Lee Krasner: A Retrospective. Museum of Modern Art. New York. 1983
Lee Krasner: Paintings from 1965 to 1970. Robert Miller Gallery. New York. 1991
Lee Krasner: Collages. Robert Miller Gallery. New York. 1986
Lee Krasner: Recent Paintings. Marlborough Gallery, New York. 1973
Prepared for the Santa Barbara Museum of Art by Betty Helton, December, 2005