Lee Krasner

Modern Masters Series #15

by Robert; B. H. Friedman (intro.) Hobbs, 93 Color & 33 b/w Illustrations (Illustrator)

At nearly every stage of her 15-year marriage to the universally recognized Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner was quicker to respond to stylistic innovations in the art world than her husband. Pollock either didn't catch on to the art-world developments that surrounded him or incorporated changes much later than Krasner did. Some critics read Krasner's dynamic painting style as evidence of her superiority as an artist, but others saw her porousness as a problem, and Pollock's comparative insularity as one key to his uniqueness. In Lee Krasner, Robert Hobbs gracefully analyzes the many forces--of personality, education, and cultural and political milieu--that shaped Krasner's 60-year devotion to art; in the process, he elucidates the many reasons her "artistically constructed self remains provisional."

B.H. Friedman, Pollock's first biographer, introduces the book with a gripping series of intimate, you-are-there diary entries from the long years of his friendship with the two artists. Then Hobbs weaves biography and critical interpretation to develop the main text of the book. The reproductions of Krasner's drawings and paintings (97 in color) are excellent, giving a fair picture of her long career, and there are more than a score of black-and-white archival photos of Krasner and the other early abstract expressionists. The book has a few odd omissions though, such as any reference to Mark Tobey, whose "white writing" paintings and others are so closely related stylistically to Krasner's work of the 1940s. Still, this is the respectful but objective book Krasner's vigorous work and forceful personality deserve. It sheds sympathetic light on her lifelong, intellectually rigorous, artistic questing. --Peggy Moorman

Genres: Art, History

Paperback

First published September 1, 1993

Reviews

[Aren Ritchie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I originally picked this book up from my university’s library to skim for quotes to use in a paper I was writing about Lee Krasner. Even though I didn’t plan on reading the whole thing, the bits I did read were so interesting that I decided to sit down and read the rest once I finished my paper. This book really covers about everything you’d want to know about her. I’d recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest in abstract art or women artists.

[Kallie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great study of Krasner's path and process as an artist. Krasner's paintings, changes in style, symbolism of form and color, emotional processes and expression of same, are discussed and analyzed in detail, so the reader comes away with insight into Krasner, and abstract expressionism. Biography itself focuses mainly on art, how life events play a part in her work.

[Ed Smiley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really 3 and a half stars, but you read art books often for the illustrations, and these are copious. The writing is somewhat cobbled together, and attempting to shoehorn Krasner into critical categories.

Lee Krasner, for the general reader who does not know this, was the wife of Jackson Pollock, as well as being an excellent abstract expressionist painter in her own right. That being said, will totally ignore that aspect, other than to note that examination of her work seems to indicate that influence went in both directions, Pollock's Easter and the Totem, a less typical work of his, seems to bear similarities to some of Krasner's earlier work. (I didn't really get that from the text, my own impression.)

Krasner had several interesting styles, and they are well illustrated and discussed: the "little image" paintings, which involved many many units, that are writing like and of modest scale, large bold abstract expressionist paintings, large paintings with extremely bold color combinations that fuse minimalism with abstract expressionism (some of these are among my favorites), and her collage/paintings.

[Gina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lee Krasner was not only Jackson Pollock's wife, she was the better artist.