by Gail Levin
Even though Krasner was present at the creation of the abstract expressionist movement, she had reason to complain that she was too often ignored in historical accounts focused on the “great men.” In their biography of de Kooning, Stevens and Swan tell a story in which Krasner was a major player, but fail even to mention her: For the Works Projects Administration (WPA) de Kooning produced a study for an abstract mural, only to be forced from the project because he was an illegal Dutch immigrant and not an American citizen. Krasner’s assignment was to enlarge his study, so she placed it on the studio wall where she worked.18 Since she could not afford a space of her own, she was using part of a studio at 38 East Ninth Street shared by Igor Pantuhoff and George McNeil. She later recalled that de Kooning often dropped by to check on her progress.
Yet Stevens and Swan, misled by another of Bultman’s faulty recollections, report that it was Igor Pantuhoff who “placed a study for one of de Kooning’s WPA murals on his studio wall.”19
They identify the little-known Pantuhoff as Lee Krasner’s “boyfriend.” Bultman had spoken to Irving Sandler of “Pantuhoff, a Russian who was a friend of both Graham’s and Gorky’s. And he hung one of those very large murals that de Kooning did for the WPA in his loft on Ninth Street then.”20 Sandler tried to get George McNeil to confirm this, leading the witness: “And de Kooning was also working in this [building on Ninth Street]?” But McNeil replied with emphasis: “No, de Kooning was not working in that building.” Sandler: “Or he had a big picture of de Kooning?” McNeil: “Penticof [Pantuhoff]?” Sandler: “Yes.” McNeil: “Maybe. Could well be, I don’t remember it though. Penticof was Lee Krasner’s boyfriend at the time. I remember him in that relationship. He had the studio in the front and I think I would remember if de Kooning had been [worked] there. Or he might have had it in his apartment.”21
Neither Krasner’s WPA assignment to enlarge and finish de Kooning’s mural nor her identity as an artist was ever mentioned in Sandler’s history, first published in 1970, as Abstract Expressionism: The Triumph of American Painting.22 Sandler also left Krasner out of his subsequent accounts of the art of the 1950s and of later decades.23 This despite the positive reviews he wrote of her shows at the time they took place. Even more inexplicably, in his recent return to the subject, Sandler still omits Krasner’s work but now attempts to explain why she was left out: “Lee Krasner should be included in the Abstract Expressionist canon. She is not because she kept out of the New York scene for personal reasons; it would have threatened her marriage to Jackson Pollock…. Her first one-person show was in 1951 at the Betty Parsons Gallery.”24 Sandler’s contention is simply not supported by the evidence, especially because Krasner showed her work in group shows in New York during the 1940s and the 1950s.
Sandler claims that “had she wanted to she could have been included among the Irascibles in their famous [1950] photograph in Life, but she did not.”25 Sandler never explains how he knows this; perhaps he imagines that Krasner could just have invited herself to join the group when the artist Barnett Newman phoned and asked if he could speak with Pollock. But this does not seem persuasive.
David Anfam, in a history of abstract expressionism written two decades after Sandler’s first account, pays Krasner more attention and gives her what reads like begrudging credit: “suffice it to say that the woman tagged ‘Pollock’s girl’ deserves a place, late developer as she was, in any balanced survey.”26 Anfam’s description of Krasner as a “late developer” belies the fact that in the same discussion he also acknowledged that she was making “all-over paintings” before Pollock did, pointing out that her Little Images “were more prescient than [Pollock’s] in one notable respect…. This ‘all-over’ structure makes the Little Image hypnotic in their own right.”27 In fact, he makes her seem innovative and early, not “late.”
Gender-based attitudes, such as those of Sandler, Anfam, and others, inspired revisionists like the art historian Ann Eden Gibson, who, in 1986, began to study abstract expressionist artists who had been omitted from the canonical list due to their gender, sexual preference, or racial identity. Her study was published in 1997.28
Despite such studies and recent publications focused entirely on Krasner, untruths about her continue to proliferate. A Swiss curator recently labeled Krasner “a committed Communist,” who “moved to Long Island with Pollock in search of a ‘simple life,’ following their marriage in 1945.”29 It is difficult to imagine how this curator came to his conclusion; he cites no evidence to support it.30 Such false accusations must be taken seriously in a country that has witnessed periodic Red Scares and where some municipalities still attempt to ban books from schools. Belief that such an invidious charge were true might even prompt provincial American museums to cash in on Krasner’s growing prestige on the international market and divest their collections of major examples of her work, acquired for modest prices at the time her reputation was almost completely eclipsed by Pollock.
Both Krasner the artist and Krasner, Pollock’s wife, were central to the development of abstract expressionism. The catalogue raisonné made reproductions of the entirety of her work accessible. Finally, we can relate her extraordinary life and mind to the art she struggled to make and to her achievement in bringing both her own and Pollock’s work to the public.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY: FREQUENTLY USED SOURCES
The author wishes to acknowledge the use of the unpublished papers from:
The Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. (and online):
Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock papers
Harold Rosenberg and May Tabak Rosenberg Papers
The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles:
Clement Greenberg papers (950085)
Harold Rosenberg papers (980048)
Museum of Modern Art, New York:
Archives
New York Public Library, New York:
Jeff Kisseloff papers
Yaddo Colony papers
Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, East Hampton, New York:
Lee Krasner papers
Frequently Cited Abbreviations
AAA: American Abstract Artists (in text)
AAA: Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution (in notes)
Author: Gail Levin
CG: Clement Greenberg
EDACA: Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America, New York, NY
Getty: Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, CA
JPCR: Francis V. O’Connor and Eugene V. Thaw, Jackson Pollock: A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1978), 4 vols.
JP: Jackson Pollock
LK: Lee Krasner
LKCR: Ellen G. Landau, Lee Krasner: A Catalogue Raisonné (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1995)
LKP: Lee Krasner Papers
MS.: Manuscript
MoMA: The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
Morgan: The Morgan Library and Museum, New York, NY
ND: Not dated
NP: Not paginated
NYPL: New York Public Library
NYT: New York Times
PKF: Pollock-Krasner Foundation, New York, NY
PKHSC: Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, Stony Brook Foundation, SUNY
WPA: Works Progress Administration
Other abbreviations given in left column below:
Interviews with Krasner,
as Published in Articles or Books or Unpublished, Chronologically Arranged
(AAA Means That These Clippings Were Saved by Krasner
and Are in Her Papers on Microfilm)
1950-Roueché LK & JP to Berton Roueché, “Talk of the Town: Unframed Space,” The New Yorker, August 5, 1950, 16.
1958-Time “Mrs. Jackson Pollock,” Time, March 17, 1958, 64.
1960-Rago LK to Louise Elliott Rago, “We Interview Lee Krasner,” School Arts, 60, September 1960, 32.
1961-Tenke LK quoted in Lois Tenke, “Pollock’s Widow Paints in His Old Studio,”
Newsday, August 28, 1961, 37.
1963-Barker LK to Walter Barker, “Art Community on Long Island,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 15, 1963, LK papers, AAA, reel 3776, frame 1038.
1964-Seckler LK to Dorothy Seckler, Interview of November 2, 1964, AAA.
1965-Forge Lee Krasner to Andrew Forge, interview of 1965, AAA, reel, 3774.
1965-Rosenberg Harold Rosenberg, “The Art Establishment,” Esquire, January 1965.
1966-Mooradian Lee Krasner to Karlen Mooradian, interview of May 6, 1966, published in Karlen Mooradian, The Many Worlds of Arshile Gorky (Chicago: Gilgamesh Press, 1980).
1966-Rose LK to Barbara Rose, interview of July 31, 1966, AAA.
1967-du Plessix Krasner quoted in interview by Francine du Plessix and Cleve Gray, “Who Was Jackson Pollock?” Art in America, May–June 1967, 51.
1967-Flora LK quoted in Doris P. Flora, “Artist Would be ‘Back-Tracking,’” Tuscaloosa News, 02-15-1967, AAA, LK papers, roll 3776, frame 1050.
1967-Glaser Lee Krasner to Bruce Glaser, interview for Art Forum # 1, AAA, undated, 1967.
1967-Nation Pat Nation, “The Artist Is Leading a Double Life, Los Angeles Times, fall 1967, AAA, Krasner papers, reel 1048.
1967-Parsons Lee Krasner interviewed by Anne Bowen Parsons, AAA.
1967-Seckler LK to Dorothy Seckler, interview of 12-14-1967, AAA.
1968-Campbell Lawrence Campbell, “Of Lilith and Lettuce,” Art News, March 1968, 62.
1968-Glueck LK to Grace Glueck, “Art Notes: And Mr. Kenneth Does Her Hair,” New York Times, March 17, 1968, D34.
1968-Wasserman-1 LK to Emily Wasserman, Interview of 1-9-68, LKP, AAA.
1968-Wasserman-2 Lee Krasner to Emily Wasserman, quoted in “Lee Krasner in Mid-Career,” Artforum, March 1968, 43.
1970-Monroe Gerald Monroe interview with Lee Krasner Pollock, notes from taped interview of 5-23-1970.
1972-Gruen LK quoted from 1969 interview in John Gruen, The Party’s Over Now (New York: The Viking Press, 1972), 232–33.
1972-Holmes LK to Dorothy Holmes, Interview, 1972, AAA.
1972-Rose-1 LK to Barbara Rose, interview of March 1972, AAA, roll 3774.
1972-Rose-2 Lee Krasner to Barbara Rose, “American Great: Lee Krasner,” Vogue, June 1972, 121, 154.
1973-Barkas Lee Krasner to Janet Barkas, “Who’s Who in East Hampton, Part I: Artists,” Paumanok, vol. 1, no. 2, July 1973, 35.
1973-Freed LK to Hermine Freed, videotaped interview, 1973, PKHSC.
1973-Gratz Roberta Brandes Gratz, “Daily Closeup: After Pollock,” New York Post, December 6, 1973, LKP, AAA, roll 3776.
1973-Nemser Lee Krasner to Cindy Nemser, “A Conversation with Lee Krasner,” Arts Magazine, April 1973, 44.
1973-Smith LK to Betty Smith, interview of 11-3-1973 in New York City, PKHSC.
1973-Wallach-1 Amei Wallach, “21/60 = A Grandad of a Show,” Newsweek, July 22, 1973.
1973-Wallach-2 Lee Krasner quoted in Amei Wallach, “Lee Krasner, Angry Artist,” Newsday, November 12, 1973, 4A.
1974-Hutchinson LK quoted by Bill Hutchinson, “Lee Krasner’s an Artist, Too,” Miami Herald, March 13, 1974, C4.
1975-Nemser-1 Cindy Nemser. Art Talk: Conversations with 12 Women Artists (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1975).
1975-Nemser-2 LK to Cindy Nemser, “The Indomitable Lee Krasner,” Feminist Art Journal, Spring 1975, IV, 6.
1976-Glueck LK quoted in Grace Glueck, “Art People,” New York Times, June 18, 1976, AAA, reel 3776, frame 1165.
1976-Newsday LK quoted in “The Tops and Flops,” Newsday, December 26, 1976, AAA, reel 3776, frame 1170.
1977-Diamonstein-1 LK to Barbaralee Diamonstein, interview transcript dated 1978 but took place in 1977, LKP, AAA, roll 3774; in Barbaralee Diamonstein, ed., Inside New York’s Art World (New York: Rizzoli, 1980).
1977-Bourdon LK to David Bourdon, “Lee Krasner: I’m Embracing the Past,” Village Voice, March 7, 1977.
1977-Glueck-1 LK to Grace Glueck, “Art People: How to Recycle Your Drawings,” New York Times, February 25, 1977, AAA, reel 3776, frame 1179.
1977-Glueck-2 LK to Grace Glueck, “The 20th Century Artist Most Admired by Other Artists,” Art News, November 1977.
1977-Ratcliff LK to Carter Ratcliff, Interview of 8-7-1977, Art in America, September–October 1977.
1977-Rodgers LK to Gaby Rodgers, interview of 1977, AAA, roll 3774; published as “She Has Been There Once or Twice; A Talk with Lee Krasner,” Women Artists Newsletter, December 1977, 3.
1977-Rose-1 Barbara Rose, outtakes for “Lee Krasner: The Long View,” film, 1978, based on interviews in August 29, 1977, by Gail Levin and others during 1977.
1977-Tallmer Jerry Tallmer, “Scissors, Paste & Bits of Survival,” New York Post, February 1977, AAA, reel 3776, frame 1175-B.
1977-Wallach Lee Krasner to Amei Wallach, “Lee Krasner’s Collages May Finally Put Mrs. Jackson Pollock in the Shade,” Newsday, February 20, 1977, reel 3776, frame 1177.
1978-Cavaliere LK to Barbara Cavaliere, interview of c. 1978, AAA, reel 3774.
1978-Glueck Grace Glueck, “Art People,” New York Times, November 24, 1978.
1978-Howard LK to Richard Howard, “A Conversation with Lee Krasner,” 1978, in Lee Krasner Paintings 1959–1962, The Pace Gallery, 1979, reprinted in Lee Krasner: Umber Paintings 1959–1962 (New York: Robert Miller Gallery, 1993), n.p.
1978-Rose-1 LK to Barbara Rose, in “Pollock’s Studio: Interview with Lee Krasner,” in Barbara Rose, ed., Pollock Painting (New York: Agrinde Publications Ltd., 1978).
1978-Rose-2 Barbara Rose, Lee Krasner: The Long View, film, American Federation of the Arts, 1978.
1979-Cavaliere Krasner to Barbara Cavaliere in “Lee Krasner: A Meeting of Past and Present,” SoHo Weekly News, February 1–7, 1979, 41.
1979-Munro Eleanor Munro, Originals: American Women Artists (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979).
1979-Novak LK to Barbara Novak, unpublished WGBH-TV, interview, 1979, LKP, AAA.
1980-Bennett LK quoted in Evelyn Bennett, “Homage to a Famous Husband: Lee Krasner: An Artist in Her Own Right,” Bridgehampton Sun, August 20, 1980, LKP, AAA, roll 3776, frames 1298–99.
1980-Braff LK to Phyllis Braff, “From the Studio,” East Hampton Star, 8-21-1980.
1980-Cavaliere LK in Barbara Cavaliere, “An Interview with Lee Krasner,” Flash Art, Jan/Feb. 1980, 12.
1980-Portfolio Lee Krasner in Portfolio, vol. II, no. 1, February/March 1980, special issue, “Women Artists on Women in Art,” 68–69.
1980-Taylor LK quoted in Robert Taylor, “Lee Krasner: Artist in Her Own Right,” The Boston Globe, May 18, 1980, C1.
1981-Delatiner LK to Barbara Delatiner, “Lee Krasner: Beyond Pollock,” New York Times, August 9, 1981.
1981-Glueck-1 Lee Krasner quoted in Grace Glueck, “Art Talk,” New York Times, November 6, 1981, C22.
1981-Glueck-2 LK to Grace Glueck, “Scenes from a Marriage: Krasner and Pollock,” Art News, December 1981, 60.
1981-Langer LK interviewed by Cassandra (Sandra L.) Langer, transcript of lost tape of March 1981, recorded in part by Ann Eden Gibson and provided to the author with the cooperation of Langer.
1981-Tallmer Jerry Tallmer, “Krasner’s Season in the Sun,” New York Post, April 4, 1981, 17, AAA, roll 3776, frame 1330.
1981-Wallach LK quoted in Amei Wallach, “Lee Krasner: Out of Jackson Pollock’s Shadow,” Newsday, 1981, 12, LK Papers, AAA, reel 3776.
1983-Hoffner Lee Krasner to Marilyn Hoffner of The Cooper Union, letter of May 16, 1983, AAA, reel 3773, frame 1344.
1983-Johnson Lee Krasner quoted in Patricia C. Johnson, Houston Chronicle, November 3, 1983, section 4, 1.
1983-Kernan LK quoted by Michael Kernan, “Out of Pollock’s Shadow: Her Life & Art Seen Whole at Last,” Washington Post, October 23, 1983, L1, L2.
1983-Liss LK to Joseph Liss, “Memories of Bonac Painters,” East Hampton Star, Summer 1983, LKP, AAA, roll 3777.
1984-Cannell Lee Krasner to Michael Cannell
, “An Interview with Lee Krasner,” Arts Magazine, vol. 59, September 1984.
1984-Kernan Michael Kernan, “Lee Krasner, Shining in the Shadow,” Washington Post, June 21, 1984, B9.
1984-Myers LK to John Bernard Myers, “Naming Pictures: Conversations between Lee Krasner and John Bernard Myers,” Artforum, vol. 23, no. 3, November 1984.
Testimony from Others: Interviews Not by the Author,
Published and Unpublished Memoirs
1957-Pollock Interview with Selden Rodman, spring 1956. In Rodman, Conversations with Artists (New York: Devin-Adair, 1957).
1960-Gibbs David Gibbs to Clement Greenberg, letter of 5-6-1960, copy sent to LK by Gibbs, Collection PKHSC.
1963-Friedman, S-1 Sanford Friedman to David Gibbs, letter of 1-22-1963, Collection PKHSC.
1963-Friedman, S-2 Sanford Friedman to David Gibbs, 2-3-1963, PKHSC.
1963-Friedman, S-3 Sanford Friedman for LK to David Gibbs, 2-20-1963, PKHSC.
1963-Spivak Max Spivak to Harlan Phillips, 1963, AAA.
1964-Gorelick Boris Gorelick to Betty Hoag, interview of 5-20-1964, AAA.
1964-Holty Carl Holty interviewed by William Agee, December 8, 1964, AAA.
1964-Trubach Serge Trubach interview, 12-5-1964, AAA.
1965-Block Irving Block to Betty Hoag, interview of 4-16-1965, AAA.
1965-Newman Barnett Newman interview with Neil A. Levine, “The New York School Question,” Art News, vol. 64, no. 5, September 1965, reprinted in John P. O’Neill, Barnett Newman: Selected Writings and Interviews (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990), 262–63.
1965-Vogel Joseph Vogel to Betty Hoag, interview of January 5, 1965, AAA.
1966-Greenberg Clement Greenberg to Karlen Mooradian, unpublished taped interview, 1966, at the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America.
1967-de Kooning Willem de Kooning to Anne B. Parsons, interview of 1967, AAA.
1967-Greene Balcomb Greene to Anne B. Parsons, interview of 9-5-1967, AAA.
1967-Kadish Reuben Kadish to Anne B. Parsons, interview of 1967, AAA.
1967-McNeil George McNeil to Anne B. Parsons, interview of 11-14-1967, AAA.
1968-Bultman Fritz Bultman to Irving Sandler, interview of 1-6-1968, AAA.