Lee Krasner

by Gail Levin

  By August 1943, with Lee’s help, Jackson had ended Jungian analysis, which he entered in 1939 with Joseph Henderson and then, when the therapist moved to California in September of 1940, continued with Violet Staub de Laszlo. Instead, Pollock began treatment with Elizabeth Wright Hubbard, M.D., a homeopathic physician in New York. Hubbard practiced “holistic” medicine, characterized by exploring the psychological as well as the physical. Today Hubbard is considered to have been one of the foremost homeopaths, whose extensive writings are still influential. Hubbard was one of the first six women to graduate from the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University, and was a pioneer in the field of holistic medicine before her death in 1967.36 One of the first to understand the significance of the mind-body connection, Hubbard treated a number of culturally prominent patients, including Alexander Calder, Darius Milhaud, and Marlene Dietrich.37 Years later, Krasner recalled that Dr. Hubbard was a Theosophist.38 Though Krasner only had a passing interest in such esoteric ideas, the spiritual leader Krishnamurti, who had himself been connected to Theosophy in his youth, had attracted Pollock’s attention during his high school days in California. After Pollock entered treatment with Dr. Hubbard, Krasner felt freer to focus on other goals.

  By now it was clear that Krasner was Pollock’s facilitator in the world. She saw him as “riddled with doubt,” but believed that “no one knew as much about himself as Jackson did. He knew what he was about.”39 She was also his cheerleader, guardian, and secretary. On November 1, Peggy Guggenheim’s assistant, Putzel, wrote to Krasner, asking her, “Lee, if you have time Tuesday can (or will) you help fold 1200 catalogues?”40 He also invited them to join him at a concert by the classical guitarist Segovia.

  Pollock’s first solo show opened at Art of This Century on November 8, 1943. “Sweeney is very pleased with Jackson & Jackson is very pleased with Sweeney,” Krasner noted of James Johnson Sweeney, the curator who had penned the catalogue’s brief note, which declared: “Pollock’s talent is volcanic. It has fire. It is unpredictable. It is undisciplined,” and it also praised him for painting “from inner impulsion without an ear to what the critic or spectator may feel.”41 Sweeney had been curator of the department of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art since 1935. The son of a rich importer of lace and textiles whose family had come from Donegal, Ireland, Sweeney had studied literature at Cambridge University and, among other work, assisted James Joyce in editing a manuscript. Well heeled and well educated, Sweeney probably had little in common with Krasner and Pollock, and they seem to have sensed that.

  In addition to the activity at Guggenheim’s gallery, Sidney Janis had organized an exhibition called “Abstract and Surrealist Art in America,” which featured the artists from his book, including Krasner and Pollock. It began at the Cincinnati Art Museum, in February 1944, billed as organized by the San Francisco Museum of Art and selected by Sidney Janis. The show then traveled to four museums across the country before it hit New York at the Mortimer Brandt Gallery from November 29 through December 30.42

  After Pollock’s show with Guggenheim closed on November 29, Krasner wrote to Mercedes (whom she addressed as “Carles Darling”), “We’re just settling down to a normal existence. The show is over. Jackson says he isn’t going to paint until Peggy sells all his paintings. No use painting new ones. The Museum of Modern Art is going to buy one when they can decide which of two canvases they like best (I hope they make up their minds some time this year). Three gouaches were sold and that’s all—He got revues [sic] in the New Yorker, Art News, Art Digest—and the Nation—and one fan letter.”43

  For Jackson and Lee, life was particularly fine. She later reflected, “Jackson had a delightful sense of humor, and when I’d rant and rave about someone being a son of a bitch, et cetera, he’d calm me down considerably. When I bellyached about my work, he’d say ‘Stay with it.’ We had a continuing dialogue about our work and he always wanted me to see what he was doing; he was always asking my reaction.”44

  In her letter to Mercedes, Krasner demanded news of Buddha and whether the Matters’ young son, nicknamed “Pundit,” realized that he was in California: “I hope not—might have a bad psychological effect on him.”45 She also recounted a bit of gossip: “Sande [Alexander ‘Sandy’ Calder] is making a bed for Peggy. Can’t get metal so its [sic] going to be in silver. And I’ve heard plenty of wise cracks about all three Sande—Peggy—and the Bed.”46 Jackson too was taken with the bed project and later wrote about it to Herbert Matter: “Sande [sic] did an interesting end decoration for Peggy’s bed, a sort of enlarged ear-ring that hangs on the wall. We seldom ever see him.”47

  Pollock, thrilled with his “amazing success for my first year of showing,” wrote in 1944 to his mother and his brother Charles to recount the details of the magazine features. He was also relieved about having the security of a “contract set for next year” from Guggenheim.48 He was still getting $150 a month, which he quickly realized “just about doesn’t meet the bills.”49 When he asked for an increase to meet minimal living expenses, Guggenheim replied, “Tell Lee to go out and get a job.” Recalling the moment, Krasner explained, “Pollock wouldn’t accept that solution and she never dared mention it again.”50

  During this period Krasner was busy corresponding with her closest friends. After Hans Hofmann’s show at Art of This Century from March 7 to 31, 1944, Lee wrote about Guggenheim again to Mercedes. “To begin with ‘Peggy’ after that visit to Hans’ studio, had a severe change of heart—I couldn’t track down who was responsible for it—to some extent those fucking sur-real-ist[s] around her—at any rate she got more & more impossible as the time for the opening approached. How ever the show was finally hung—(I stayed away.) Jackson was there—& it naturally looked very exciting and she seemed to relax some what—She hates his large oils—loves his gouaches.”51 Krasner reported that Hans’s wife, Meetz, “Miz,” was “behaving beautifully around this business,” but that she preferred that the show feature the large oils. Peggy took the opposite view and, naturally, got her way.

  Regardless, Krasner liked the outcome. “The show is really very very beautiful & alive and exciting…. The ‘Times’ reviewed the show…. The opening was mobbed—But none of your snobbish friends—and Hans was aware of it—not even Sandy [Calder]—Sweeney hasn’t seen the show yet but he will.”52 Krasner felt that Howard Putzel had been “wonderful throughout—He really likes Hans’ work—& he helped & plotted with us—Hans feels a great deal will depend on whether Sweeney approves or not—and to a great extent He’s right. If he does—it may break up that taboo which exists in that small but useful little groupe [sic]—Of course I’d prefer to use a bomb. The results would be much more to my liking—Yes you certainly picked the right winter to be away from N.Y.”53

  Krasner wanted her close friend to return to New York—what she called “this nice nest of snakes in the east.” She also confided: “Jackson censors my letters so He says I can’t tell you that Dr. Hubbards little pills are showing results—‘on him.’ He’s amazed that those silly little pills lessen the desire to drink—I’m keeping my fingers crossed—Remember How we poopooed Herbert when he suggested Hubbard?” Lee informed Mercedes, “By the way I gave her a good talking to about her ignorance of painting (modern). Did you know Cezanne used Homeopathy? That’s what started it—I mean my lecture—Also probably modern art.”54 Though Krasner believed in Hubbard and was grateful to Herbert Matter for recommending him, she felt that she had to enlighten the doctor about art.

  Lee also wrote that Jackson’s mother had just come east and stayed with them for two weeks. “We had a wonderful time eating a new cake every day—each one better than the one before.” Though she also asked how Herbert’s show had gone in Chicago, she was preoccupied by anxiety about Jackson’s relationship with Art of This Century and Peggy’s contract with Jackson that guaranteed him a minimal monthly income. This concern held her focus: “July 15th draws near & Peggy is not renewing the co
ntract—She’s still as interested as ever in his paintings but she can’t stand ‘ties’—She’s been uncomfortable about it since the day she signed it. That’s why she’s probably had 4 husbands & is getting ready for a 5th. Strangely enough I can understand it—Maybe that’s why I don’t get married.”55

  Lee boasted that Jackson had “just finished the largest & possibly his best canvas to date—56 x 96"—Peggy is coming to dinner Sunday to see it—My painting stinks but I won’t give up—The horrible thing is that I’m painting every day (much more painting time than Jackson) but it still stinks.”56 She was writing about Pasiphae, a canvas Pollock had not finished in time for his solo show in November 1943. She also reminded the Matters not to miss buying the April issue of Harper’s Bazaar, which featured Sweeney’s article “Five American Painters” and included a color reproduction of Pollock’s canvas The She-Wolf (1943).57 The others featured were Gorky, Morris Graves, Milton Avery, and Matta.

  Though Krasner did not save Mercedes’s letters to her, she did retain George Mercer’s letters. After Mercer visited Lee and Jackson in New York in the spring of 1944, he wrote on April 17, 1944, to tell them he had enjoyed seeing them and the “victory” dinner that they had shared. Pollock was celebrating getting a contract for another year after all. “I should have told you of my faith in order that the pressure could have been eased,” Mercer wrote to them. “But then, that might have removed the necessity or desire for an excursion with Bacchus. Those things can be fun.”58 Clearly Mercer did not grasp the danger of alcohol for Pollock. He probably appreciated, even envied, that Pollock was free from military duty and able to paint. Another visitor was her friend and Hofmann School chum Ray “Buddha” Eames, who was visiting New York with her husband.

  In June 1944, Lee wrote to Mercedes, this time from Cape Cod, where she and Jackson, having sublet their place in the city, planned to spend the summer: “Now we are settled in P-town—15 Cottage St. and things seem a little more settled—I suppose you’ve seen Buddha by now.” Lee complained that her time with Buddha in New York had seemed like “two seconds” because they could not really talk in the presence of Jackson and Charles Eames. “At the moment we are living most happily and I am truly gratified—P-T. is beautiful as you know and we are one block from the farm so we can stay off of the muck around center of town—We came up with Hans and Meetz [Miz]—Hans left from the hospital directly on to the Cape Coder.”

  She reported how well Hofmann was doing after his hernia operation, though expressed concern that his recovery was a bit slow. Fritz and Jeanne Bultman were among those whose presence she noted, while going on to gossip about another Hofmann student, the jewelry, furniture, and interior designer Ward Bennett, who was staying at the Hofmann house, asking if he had been “‘Elsa K.’s’ l’amour—yes?” Krasner asked about how things were with “Herbert & Pundit”: “Do you think you’ll be out west much longer now that the end of the war is so close? I heard about Herbert’s show in Chicago & someone told me He is or has shown in Los Angeles. Tell me about it,” she implored.

  Krasner also noted, “Howard Putzel is coming up in a few days and I understand he quit his job (with Peggy). Sounds serious but I won’t know anything until I see him.” She also wrote that she had seen a show of work by Mercedes’s father—Arthur B. Carles—and found his paintings “very wonderful.”59

  For his part, Jackson wrote to his mother and his brother Sande, and his wife, Arloie, “Provincetown looks much better to me now—we are at the west end of town and within walking distance of the beach. We get in for a dip at least once a day…. Haven’t gotten into work yet. Howard Putzel came up last nite [sic] for [a] two week stay—we had dinner with the Hofmanns. Hans still has to take it pretty easy.”60

  By September 7, 1944, Pollock had changed his mood again, writing to Herbert Matter in Los Angeles: “I have definitely decided I don’t like P-town. Perhaps Truro or Wellfleet is more sympathetic to painting,” he opined. The small town of Truro, where the much more politically conservative Edward Hopper painted realistic views of the landscape, was, however, an unlikely place for Pollock.

  “Neither Lee nor I have touched a brush since we are here. Am anxious to get back to 46 E. 8th and down to work. I have a brother at 901 E Hyde Park, Inglewood. If you’re able to get around look him up and I’ll tell him to do the same—he’s a swell guy and politically left—I feel he supports me in that direction.”61

  Hofmann also wrote about that summer to Mercedes Matter, observing, “neither Lee nor Jackson worked. They have been every day on the beach—well—who can blame them—he worked so hard throughout a long time and Lee was exhausted I think from being the wife of him.”62 Hofmann already thought of the couple as married, although they were not then.

  Krasner had to leave suddenly to tend to her ailing father in Huntington, Long Island. With no one to answer to, Pollock got arrested for being drunk and disturbing the peace. Hofmann explained that Jackson’s behavior suffered when he drank excessively: “he offends everyone in his surroundings—the end is always a collapse.”63 This episode perhaps exemplifies Pollock’s pathologies and why his letters to the Matters differ from Krasner’s cheery accounts.

  For his part, Hofmann admired Krasner and recognized Pollock’s talent, but, as he wrote to Mercedes Matter in October 1944, he feared the change that came over Pollock when he drank to the point of collapsing: “I feel sorry for such a constitution because in the end it must be of tragic consequences. Jackson is highly sensitive, he is a wonderful artist, he is in reality good-natured, but his companionship is hard to stand when he is off the normal. Lee will have a hard time with him, but she stays with him and I respect her for this.”64

  KRASNER’S FATHER DIED ON NOVEMBER 17, 1944. GEORGE MERCER, who had recently visited with Krasner and Pollock in New York, sent his sympathy for her “unhappiness and discomfort” before discussing his own efforts at painting.65 “This is the first painting that hasn’t been tortured into a Hans Hofmann format. It is delightful to be free of the restraints of the ‘old school.’ I’m sure it has its bad features and its good ones. The parts of this painting do not have to answer the question ‘Is it plastic’ but rather ‘Is it right?, Does it work?’ I’m sure Hofmann’s [sic] would be in agony if he saw the painting but I am excited because I have found things and colors (in paint, of course.).”66 Inspired by Persian miniatures, Mercer explained, he had to paint small. The army kept him from having both enough free time and a studio in which to produce larger works.

  Mercer reported that “it was nice to see Jackson. We had a short talk but didn’t quite get our hooks entangled. I was too self conscious about my wisdom tooth which had been taken out the week before. I like his new paintings. I ‘saw’ them for the first time and should like to be painting what he is—but of course that is impossible. I think they are very important and sound—if that has any meaning as criticism of painting.”67

  Toward the end of December, Lee wrote to Mercedes, “It seems as if you’ve been away 10 years—It (California) couldn’t be that bad or you wouldn’t have stayed that long—I hate N.Y. and every body in it—Sorry to splash ice water on your firey [sic] dreams of N.Y. We’re isolated ourselves in a sense—No openings no cocktail parties as little of 57th St and all its shit as possible—Even at that some creeps through and the stench is terrific.”68

  Krasner’s desire not to mingle represents a change for her that most likely had to do with her desire to protect Pollock from too many opportunities to drink. When she was with Pantuhoff she had often gone to art openings and hung out at the Jumble Shop.

  Krasner also complained about James Johnson Sweeney, “whom I must still be respectful of (at least publicly) because of his continued interest in Jackson…I might add slightly cooled interest, from time to time [he] commits outrages [sic] acts—and I must keep my mouth shut—Your Sande [sic] Calder just had a show of his recent works—And in all honesty they are dull.”69

  Krasner had an even lower o
pinion of “Jackson’s Peggy Guggenheim,” who, she said, “is still part of our life. But oh my isn’t she a rest less ladie [sic]—Here to-day but then there’s to-morrow—A new star loomed on the 57th St—sky—Howard Putzel—formerly with P.G. has his own Gallery—67 East 57th St—Its backed by McPherson [sic]—Remember him? He’s the man (I mean be careful how you use that word) that shares Peggy’s house and has more money than Peggy (be careful what you say about him he buys Pollocks).”70 Kenneth Macpherson, an openly bisexual and debonair Scotsman, poet, and novelist moved into his own apartment in Peggy’s town house on East Sixty-first Street and comforted her during her divorce from Max Ernst.71

  Krasner could be somewhat caustic, especially when defending Pollock. She told Mercedes, “Our Hans is painting and exhibiting all over the place—Some good some not so good—Our relationship Pollocks Mr. & Mrs. & Hofmanns Mr. & Mrs.—is a little touchy right now—It’s silly and not worth going into except to say that it was produced mainly by Meetz’s [Miz, Mrs. Hofmann] stupid tongue. She however is so much better now as a person that it seems unfair to mention it at all. Particularly don’t you mention it.”72 It’s notable that Krasner referred to herself as “Mrs. Pollock” though not yet married.

  The reference to Mrs. Hofmann’s troubling tongue may have come from an incident that Robert Motherwell recounted years later. Motherwell described a visit he and Pollock made “to Hofmann’s studio, hung with works by Léger, Miró, Braque, etc…. We were drinking from a jug of wine when there was a phenomenon like changing gears in a car; Pollock’s whole expression changed, literally in seconds, and his eyes became glazed—a real Jekyll and Hyde.” He became either too drunk or too belligerent to walk. Motherwell complained: “Jackson and Hofmann both lived on the top floors of their buildings, so Hofmann, in his sixties, and I had to drag him down five or six flights, then along 8th Street to his building’s foyer. We buzzed his apartment but no answer.”