by Gail Levin
The drunken Pollock teased them, refusing to give them his key so that they could help him upstairs. In the midst of his antics, Pollock fell, hitting his head against a marble surface, which knocked him out cold. At first they were frantic, thinking that he was dead. When they realized that Pollock was still alive, they retrieved the key and struggled to drag his limp body up the stairs. “We were trying to open the apartment door when Lee opened it; she’d been there all the time but wasn’t answering. I was so enraged by that, we just dropped him. And to this day I have no idea what was going on in her mind.”73
Then only in his twenties, Motherwell seems to have assumed that Lee actually heard the buzzer. In the heat of the moment, he did not stop to consider that she might have been in the bath, listening to loud music, or sound asleep—or that the buzzer was not even working. Much better off economically than Lee or Jackson, Motherwell might not have imagined living in a walk-up apartment on the top floor without a working buzzer. Nor did he show the least bit of concern for a woman confronting her live-in companion’s inert body dumped on the floor in front of her.
This incident may also shed some light on his dislike of Krasner. Perhaps Motherwell resented Krasner’s closeness to Pollock—the energy she expended on promoting him, or her resentment of being viewed by Motherwell and other male artists as just one of the “wives.”74 Ironically, given their long mutual antipathy, Krasner and Motherwell were both enthusiasts of Matisse, Rimbaud, Poe, Meyer Schapiro, medieval manuscripts, and internationalism.75 Though both searched for universal modern principles in art, perhaps gender bias, rivalry over Pollock, and personality kept them against each other.
Though she claimed not to hear who was sleeping with whom, Lee shared some gossip with Mercedes, covering the tales of Peggy Guggenheim’s daughter, Pegeen, and the French modernist painter Jean Hélion, whom Pegeen would marry, and of Matta, the Chilean Surrealist who had run off and left his wife and two small children. Krasner had heard these stories from Laura Sweeney, the curator’s wife.
Lee also told Mercedes about a dinner she had given for Peggy and the critic Clem Greenberg and noted that he reviewed painting for The Nation, an influential position that he had assumed in early 1942. Having heard that Mercedes had run into Arshile Gorky’s ex-lover reminded Lee to comment on what she had heard about Gorky: that there had been “this terrific change that took place in his work. Sweeney in his Harper’s Bazaar article & much talk here & there. I had the opportunity to see a gigantic canvas & I mean huge even in relation to Jacksons [sic] paintings. It is at the Janis show…. He has unquestionably opened up in his painting but the main change is that its [sic] now Kandinsky instead of Matta, Miro, Picasso, etc. Still not enough Gorky.”76
Among other news, Lee told Mercedes that she had not seen Sara Johns more than a couple of times since she had returned from Provincetown, which she regretted, because she considered Sara “so wonderful.” Upbeat about Jackson, Lee noted that he was still working with Dr. Hubbard and wrote, “Some wonderful painting has come into existence since you & Herbert left N.Y. He is having a show in a month or so at the San Francisco Museum & Dr. Morley—is going to send it from there to several other places in California. Don’t know where yet. Try & See it.”77 She still exuded optimism.
On March 19, 1945, Pollock’s solo show opened to a large crowd at Art of This Century. Guggenheim later wrote that she had “acute infectious mononucleosis…during the annual Pollock show and had to stay in bed. This distressed Lee Krasner very much, as she said no one could sell anything in the gallery except me, and Putzel had left to set up his gallery in New York. Poor man, this proved to be a great tragedy, as it ended in his suicide.”78
Mercer, then stationed in Los Angeles, wrote to Krasner on April 24, 1945, telling her, “I have the note you wrote. You refer to the Miro show and to the paintings—‘each painting is a little miracle.’ That is a wonderful description. I have stored it and remembered it. I shant forget it.”79 He proudly reported doing “a terrific analytic cubist painting for the picture and was fun—a tank covered with rubble-like boards and plaster and burned wood and only the slim line of the grain and one of the caterpillar tracks showing. No one knew what I was doing but I suppose I was almost having a camouflaged orgasm due to the fact I haven’t painted for so long and because I told them that…the way to camouflage a tank is burned-out ruins and it is.”80 He promised to show her a photograph of this work.
Mercer was happy to receive an invitation to Jackson’s show, which he wanted to see, though it was impossible. He said he hoped to visit them on a leave in either July or August. He wrote that his sister and her husband, Elizabeth and Whit, “wrote that they saw Jackson’s show and were tempted to buy. That is a great conversion! Kandinsky has had his effect on them since he has been hanging in their living room. Dad mentioned the favorable review in the New Republic—which impressed him. Krasner—are you painting?”81
The question was a sore point. This was a frustrating period for Krasner. Nothing seemed to work. Unlike her friend, she did not have the army to blame for her inability to realize paintings that just seemed to turn into gray slabs. She later attributed this period of transition to the impact of Pollock on her work. “I went through a kind of black-out period or a painting of nothing but gray building up, because the big transition there is that up to that point, and including Hofmann, I had worked from nature…. as I had worked so-called, from nature, that is, I am here and Nature is out there, whether it be in the form of a woman or an apple or anything else, the concept was broken.”82
She discussed the trauma of facing a blank canvas “with the knowledge that I am nature and try to make something happen on that canvas, now this is the real transition that took place. And it took me some three years.”83 Krasner explained the change in her way of working: “If Hofmann broke up the Academy, then Pollock broke up Hofmann, and by Hofmann, I mean working from the cubist, bearing in mind that Hofmann was teaching the principles of cubism. And Pollock once more broke that up.”84
Regardless of her frustration, Krasner described Pollock’s attitude toward her own artwork as “very supportive…I don’t know how I would have felt if he’d said ‘I don’t want you to paint,’ or acted it out in some way. The issue, of course, never arose; but it’s inconceivable to me that I would have stopped painting if my husband hadn’t approved. Since Pollock was a turbulent man, life with him was never very calm. But the question—should I paint, shouldn’t I paint—never arose. I didn’t hide my paintings in a closet; they hung on the wall next to his.”85
On May 14, 1945, Howard Putzel’s first show—“A Problem for Critics”—at his new Gallery 67 opened in New York, and it included work by both Lee and Jackson. Putzel maintained close ties to the couple after leaving Peggy Guggenheim’s employ. They were in excellent company, since Putzel had included work by Jean Arp, Miró, and Picasso, whom he considered forerunners of the new movement. Besides Lee and Jackson, the other artists included Hans Hofmann, André Masson, Mark Rothko, Charles Seliger, Rufino Tamayo, R. W. [Richard] Pousette-Dart, Arshile Gorky, and Adolph Gottlieb. Although “Lenore Krasner” was the only woman in the show, the critic for the New York Times, Edward Alden Jewell, did not comment on her work, nor did he identify her ties to Jackson Pollock, whom he called “a vigorous new talent that could advantageously bend its wild will to a lot more discipline.”86 Jewell understood that the title of the show referred to the need “to supply the first syllable for a new ‘ism,’ which, Mr. Putzel believes, has been developing since around 1940.”87
At this time, Krasner went to work in studio space rented from Reuben Kadish. He recalled that she and Jackson needed to be apart: “They were so competitive then, so much so that Lee couldn’t work in the same space as Jackson, and I rented her a room in my studio.”88 Krasner produced a few works such as Image Surfacing, where forms were beginning to emerge from her thick gray foundation that had previously threatened to absorb all her imagery as she sought to
escape cubism. The shapes, though familiar, appeared to be more crudely rendered than usual, which attests to the powerful impact of Pollock on her work. Likewise, a primitive figure suggests both Krasner’s and Pollock’s mutual appreciation of the work of Miró. A small palettelike shape on the right side may represent a studio still life setup, which hearkens back to her time with Hofmann. She has drawn marks in wet paint with the handle of her brush instead of painting the clean black outlines that she had used while under the influence of Mondrian. Her continuing interest in the idea of the “primitive” reflects the influence of both Graham and Pollock.
Among the books Krasner owned is the American edition of G. Baldwin Brown’s The Art of the Cave Dweller, which features schematic drawings of animals from cave paintings that relate to Image Surfacing, particularly in its evocation of a large eye.89 Brown wrote: “The earliest stages in the evolution of representative art have been already traced—the casual finger mark, the accidental resemblance, the resemblance worked out, the mental image materialized till the original is re-created as a thing of life.”90 Krasner may have meant to call upon just such an accidental process in her title Image Surfacing.
Mercer wrote to Krasner on June 24, 1945, “There have been many times since 1940 that I have thought of our talks and have relied on them as one of the few things I could trust and wanted to renew. (I might as well shear myself of formality and say that I have sometimes wondered what I would do if I couldn’t look forward to talking with you again and benefiting from your sound logic.)”91 He told of his “regeneration after college” but admitted that “the bubble burst, with a weak, ridiculous little noise…. That left no one except Krasner and I thanked someone (not God I’m afraid) for Krasner. I thanked her, too, for ‘The Cosmological Eye’—which I have been reading.”92
Mercer, who never saw actual battle, lamented that “the war has carried me away from the things which were important to me in 1940…. After three years of telling lies and playing a weak game of politics, I wonder whether I’ll be able to get ‘back.’…What painting I have done seems to me to be a very feeble protest against Army routine. It is so different an undertaking that it requires a different mind and a different attitude.” He was not able to achieve the separation from the army that he needed in order to paint. “Besides, the painting must be turned off and on—like water,” he explained. “Thereby it becomes a hobby and Christ knows painting is no hobby.”93
Whatever Krasner wrote to Mercer about her spiritual struggle provoked a response that suggests what Krasner had been writing to him: “Your admission that you need religion is one that I have never made. I salute your courage. Of course, it can be difficult to find once the admission is made. That’s in the way of warning but not discouragement. You also speak of a //// ‘fever chart’ existence—from ecstasy to horrible despair. It ain’t good, I know. But I’m afraid the despair is the price you pay for the ecstasy.”94
The search for something to replace the beliefs that she had jettisoned as a teenager would continue for Krasner, who would later befriend a number of Catholic priests.95
Mercer tried to console her: “I don’t believe that everyone experiences ecstasy as strongly as the artist or poet. And perhaps he creates the desperation in his mind at times when he is struggling unsuccessfully to reach a pinnacle of great excitement, love and insight. Those few people who are able to reach the pinnacle should regard it as a gift—because the ability is certainly not acquired, although a struggle is required for them to reach it—even occasionally.” From his point of view, “the struggle is worth it except when you hit the bottom of the barrel with a bang—and wonder.” That was the painful place Krasner’s own painting had reached as she sought to respond to Pollock’s new kind of painting.
Mercer brought up “the gray mass,” referring to her unresolved paintings: “Can you imagine living the part of the gray mass (or straight horizontal line) and at the same time realizing that you have voluntarily and irrevocably given up an attempt to reach the heights of great inspiration? No, that would be the worst miserable condition in existence.”96 He attempted to encourage her as she struggled to deal with the huge impact of Pollock’s new way of painting and to free herself from the constraints of cubism.
It was Mercer’s turn in their reciprocal exchange. Her efforts to pull him up when he had been depressed had helped. By now he had adapted to the constraints imposed by the army. Mercer told how he painted in his room, taking care to hide it from others. He wanted to blend into the army and did not want to mix that life up with what he called “the real life.” He asked Krasner if he was wrong to take such an attitude and, if so, what a good solution would be. Clearly he valued what he viewed as her clearheaded logic. He looked forward to his next visit with her. Mercer also wrote that he was delighted with the print that she sent of Martin Schöngauer’s Temptation of St. Anthony, which, he said, gave him a “good solid belly laugh to realize that Saint ‘Tony’ went through Hell, too.”97
Renouncing all worldly pleasures, Anthony, the Egyptian, went off to live as a hermit in the desert. In the midst of his prayers, Anthony often saw visions of Satan. The appeal to Krasner of both the devil theme and of Schöngauer’s imaginative portrayal, must have been the powerfully rendered collection of devils, demons, and winged monsters that spoke to her own fear of the dark and the supernatural.
Krasner’s decision to send Mercer a reproduction of Schöngauer’s Temptation of St. Anthony suggests that the image appealed to her as well. It is a very interesting selection because the theme of supernatural temptation occurs in old masters such as Schöngauer, Hieronymus Bosch, and Matthias Grünwald, and also in the work of modern artists, especially Surrealists like Max Ernst, who produced a painting on the theme in 1945.
Krasner had probably heard about Hollywood’s Loew-Lewin motion picture productions that had just held a contest among twelve well-known modern artists to paint what St. Anthony saw. That the producers paid each invited contestant $500 and that the announced prize (which ultimately went to Ernst) was $3,000 would have caught Krasner’s attention. The judges were Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Marcel Duchamp, and Sidney Janis, in whose book Krasner’s own work had appeared.98 Besides Max Ernst, with whom Krasner was familiar through both Peggy Guggenheim and Max’s son Jimmy, the invited artists included such notables as the Surrealists Paul Delvaux, Salvador Dalí, Dorothea Tanning, and Leonora Carrington, and the Americans Abraham Rattner, Louis Guglielmi, and Ivan Le Lorraine Albright.99
Krasner’s own struggle to change her mode of painting may explain why she declined to take part in a June 1945 group show titled “The Women,” held at Art of This Century. Jewell reported in the New York Times, “Although Gypsy Rose Lee, Loren McIver [sic] and Lenore Krasner are listed as participants in this vehement June gambado, work by them could not be secured, so their names must, with regret, be crossed off.”100 The show also featured a number of women artists, who, like Krasner, were closely associated with male artists, including Kay Sage, the French Surrealist Yves Tanguy’s American wife; Hedda Sterne, wife of the artist-illustrator Saul Steinberg; and Jacqueline Lamba, who divorced the Surrealist André Breton and married the American sculptor David Hare. Krasner no doubt resented being segregated into a show of only women and already disliked Peggy intensely. She admitted years later that she “hated her attitude toward women. I didn’t want to show. She wasn’t friendly to women. She didn’t like women.”101
Because Guggenheim was constantly supporting needy friends, it seems less likely that she resented Krasner merely for asking her to renew Pollock’s contract or to raise his stipend enough so that they could live on it. In retrospect, the antipathy between Krasner and Guggenheim seems inevitable. Guggenheim, the descendant of an earlier migration of Swiss and German Jews, came from inherited wealth. Many German Jews viewed Russian Jews like Krasner with condescension and considered themselves respectable in contrast to the “uncouth, unwashed Russians,” creating much resentment.102 Peggy
had descended from two well-established families—the Guggenheims, but also the Seligmans on her mother’s side—and she must have viewed Krasner as true to stereotype: irksome, loud, pushy, and aggressive. Indeed, she was forceful and intense in her promotion of Pollock’s art.
Guggenheim’s supposed prejudices do not account for her friendship with the anarchist Emma Goldman, whom she knew well in France during the late 1920s and early 1930s. Peggy financially supported Emma, who helped her separate from her abusive husband, the artist Laurence Vail, which allowed her to regain her “lost self-respect.”103 Eventually, however, Peggy turned on Emma (who declined to mention Peggy’s support in her memoir) after deciding she was an “awful fake.”104
In the case of Krasner, it is also possible that Guggenheim was jealous of Pollock’s wife. After all, she was aging and was twice divorced. Guggenheim wrote, “My relationship with Pollock was purely that of artist and patron, and Lee was the intermediary. Pollock himself was rather difficult; he drank too much and became so unpleasant, one might say devilish, on these occasions.”105
Despite her personal feelings about Guggenheim, Krasner always made sure to credit her accomplishments: “Art of This Century was of the utmost importance as the first place where the New York School could be seen. That can never be minimized, and Peggy’s achievement should not be underestimated; she did major things for the so-called Abstract Expressionist group. Her gallery was the foundation, it’s where it all started to happen…. Peggy was invaluable…. That must be kept in history.”106
And even though the couple met such art world luminaries as Duchamp, Matta, Sweeney, Soby, and Barr at Peggy’s parties at her home, these events were taxing for Krasner—she always had to keep her eye on Pollock, his drinking, and the resulting behavior.107 It was a time when he should have been making contacts to help promote his work and she did as much as she could to help him.