Yo kid. Meet Lee Krasner. Kranser was Jackson Pollock’s (more later) wife, but that sort of pollutes the well of her greatness. She is an artist that demands to be looked at outside the shadow of that dude. She was a force of nature who worked and pushed and worked and pushed forward for over 50 years. She was a pioneer of abstract painting, collage, assemblage…the list goes on.
She went to the Women’s Art School at Cooper Union and then studied at the National Academy of Design. She studied with Hans Hoffman (more later), and hung out with Mondrian (they shared a love of jazz). She introduced Pollock to De Kooning (more later). She created wildly dense, untested, thick with paint, often straight from the tube, almost hieroglyphic, paintings. She dabbled in collages, drawing inspiration from Mattise’s paper work.
She worked silently in the shadow of her husband while making work that I argue is in every way, shape, and form, better than Pollock. I look to her work often. I have a soft spot in my heart for people making beautiful things in the shadows (albeit sexist shadows). She was a fucking legend and I relish her work. A force to be reckoned with, a feminist icon forgotten…she’s someone we need to be talking about more.
