{"id":621362,"date":"2026-10-05T14:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T14:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/621362\/"},"modified":"2026-10-05T14:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T14:50:08","slug":"each-artist-on-their-own-terms-why-lee-krasner-was-every-bit-the-equal-to-husband-jackson-pollock-exhibitions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/621362\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Each artist on their own terms\u2019: why Lee Krasner was every bit the equal to husband Jackson Pollock | Exhibitions"},"content":{"rendered":"

In addition to managing her own career as an artist and being a devoted partner to an often unpredictable and tumultuous Jackson Pollock<\/a>, Lee Krasner<\/a> had at least one other duty \u2013 acting as the unofficial publicist to her husband\u2019s career.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was a great champion of Pollock\u2019s work, but also so aware of the gender politics of the time,\u201d says curator David Breslin, who alongside Brinda Kumar worked for three long years to bring a new blockbuster dual show<\/a>, exploring the arc of Pollock\u2019s and Krasner\u2019s careers, to the public at New York\u2019s Metropolitan Museum of Art. \u201cShe was such a realist, she knew if there was one person in the couple who would sell, it was him. She wanted to pay the bills.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe did it all, right down to down to folding the programs in the gallery,\u201d adds Kumar. \u201cWhen Pollock was taking off, Krasner\u2019s career was static.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gender politics is one of the reasons that Krasner remains in Pollock\u2019s shadow to this day, despite many accolades \u2013 she was one of vanishingly few female artists granted a solo retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art<\/a>, and prices for her work on the art market have vaulted up to as much as $10m.<\/p>\n

Lee Krasner, Combat, 1965. Oil on canvas. 70 1\/2 in. \u00d7 13 ft. 5 9\/16 in. (179 \u00d7 410.4 cm). National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Felton Bequest, 1992. Photograph: \u00a9 2026 Pollock-Krasner Foundation \/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York<\/p>\n

The differences between these two careers were something that Breslin and Kumar grappled with while curating this massive venture, which saw loans from over 80 institutions worldwide and spans over 120 paintings, including work from Modigliani, Matisse<\/a>, Picasso<\/a> and de Kooning. While Pollock\u2019s rise was meteoric and his fame immense, Krasner created steadily for a much longer time period, working for two full decades after her husband\u2019s death in a driving accident in 1956.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t try to make balances where they aren\u2019t there,\u201d says Breslin. \u201cWe let it show that the disparity was real.\u201d Kumar adds, \u201cWe found it productive to think in terms of the creative adjacency that informs their practice, a looking back and forth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pollock and Krasner happened to meet at a pivotal New York<\/a> exhibition curated by the artist John Graham at McMillen Inc. The show has become storied for launching the careers of both Pollock and de Kooning, while also juxtaposing leaders of the New York School with Parisian greats.<\/p>\n

At the time of that meeting, the socially adroit Krasner was by far the better connected of the two, whereas Pollock was something of a recluse. \u201cKrasner knew everybody at the time, Pollock wasn\u2019t such a mixer,\u201d says Kumar. \u201cThe one person she didn\u2019t know at that show was Pollock.\u201d<\/p>\n

Installation view of Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous at The Met. Photograph: Anna-Marie Kellen\/The Met<\/p>\n

This groundbreaking exhibition is re-created in part in the Met\u2019s show in a gallery that seeks to let audiences feel as though they are walking through that gallery itself, intermingling Pollock and Krasner with many of Europe\u2019s great artists \u201cWe wanted to give a sense of what was up for grabs at the time,\u201d says Breslin.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth how much they were a product of the time and how much they diverged and went away from what was typical of the era\u2019s styles.\u201d<\/p>\n

After moving to Long Island together in 1945, the two artists would spend years creating alongside one another, seeing their creativity refracted and reflected through each other\u2019s work. Coming from vastly different traditions \u2013 Krasner was a consummate New Yorker with an impeccable scholarly pedigree, whereas Pollock was a creature of the untamed west, profoundly influenced by Mexican muralism, Indigenous artists \u2013 they found ways to support one another\u2019s development as artists.<\/p>\n

\u201cKrasner had the best art training that anyone in America could have had at that moment,\u201d says Kumar. \u201cBut when you become too schooled you can lose yourself. Her encounter with Pollock gave the freedom to break away \u2013 once she found that freedom she was so free.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Breslin and Kumar, Krasner introducted Pollock to the work of Matisse, who was to become a major influence for both artists, particularly through the MoMA\u2019s enormous 1951 Matisse retrospective, where they were especially inspired by the Frenchman\u2019s late career cutout works. \u201cKrasner and Matisse give Pollock permission to use color in a different way,\u201d says Breslin.<\/p>\n

Jackson Pollock, The Key, 1946. Oil on linen. 59 \u00d7 82 1\/16 in. The Art Institute of Chicago, through prior gift of Mr and Mrs Edward Morris. Photograph: \u00a9 The Pollock-Krasner Foundation\/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York<\/p>\n

The Met is not the first institution to showcase both artists together, but it has taken a number of steps to distinguish its exhibition from earlier shows. By extending their time frame to the periods both before and after they were together, Breslin and Kumar are able to tell the story of each\u2019s career, while also showing work that isn\u2019t always curated into exhibitions of these artists.<\/p>\n

For as much as they explore their mutual influence on one another, Breslin and Kumar were also careful to avoid doing a \u201ccompare and contrast\u201d of the two artists. \u201cThere\u2019s so much focus on \u2018who did what first?\u2019, \u2018who did the drip first?\u2019\u201d says Breslin.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to undo this. These ideas were in the air, they worked in a circle of other artists.\u201d Kumar adds: \u201cWe create moments of encountering each artist on their own terms.\u201d<\/p>\n

The show\u2019s name, Past Continuous, is derived from a group of paintings that Krasner made late in her career, each one titled for a different verb tense: Future Indicative, Imperative, Imperfect Indicative, Past Continuous. Breslin explained that the idea of a continuous past became a metaphor for each artist, since they never refuse their individual and collective pasts, but rather let them keep coming back forward in their lives and art. \u201cTo have that past continue into the present and into the future is something that we wanted to have in the exhibition,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cKrasner said it,\u201d adds Kumar. \u201c\u2018I believe in continuity. The past is part of the present, which becomes part of the future.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In addition to managing her own career as an artist and being a devoted partner to an often…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,501,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-621362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}