Lee Krasner / Trail Blazer / Influencer of Jackson Pollack
image: www.TheArtStory.org
Lee Krasner (1908-1984) was an abstract expressionist painter who was known for a substantial and prolific career as an artist, and for being married to the uber famous abstract painter Jackson Pollock. She influenced Pollock’s famous drip paintings with her own “all over” style abstract paintings. Unlike her husband who died in a car accident, Krasner lived long enough to get recognized for her work as her work was “rediscovered” in the 1970s by feminist curators. In 1983, a year before her death, Krasner was honored with a traveling retrospective series that started in Texas and ended in New York a few months after death in 1984.
Her art went through three phases in her 30 year career; the Little Image series in the 1940s; collage paintings in the 1950s; big canvases of color in the 1960s. Of particularly interest is her incorporating of Jewish mysticism into her paintings and how it is said she held her own work to a high standard, at a time when women were often eclipsed by men. Krasner is a great example of a woman who persisted in a predominately male environment, even when so obviously being paid less than her contemporaries.
I feel that I am walking, as an artist, and a woman, in the path that women such as Lee Krasner made for me. By using my art to raise funds for the #MarchForERA I am continuing the path that others before me began. Please feel free to add your comments and experiences.
Please use #AMAMarchForERA (Ask Me Anything) to comment and ask me questions.
Sincerely, Natalie White
Dr. Gail Levin discusses Lee Krasner’s “Influential and colorful life.”, at the Elizabeth A Sackler Foundation https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/about/elizabeth_sackler/
