{"id":634559,"date":"2026-10-18T19:02:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T19:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/634559\/"},"modified":"2026-10-18T19:02:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T19:02:16","slug":"the-inseparable-legacies-of-jackson-pollock-and-lee-krasner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/634559\/","title":{"rendered":"The inseparable legacies of Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner"},"content":{"rendered":"

The old farmhouse in the hamlet of Springs, N.Y., is easy to miss, if not for the sign for the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center<\/a>. Here, on the east end of Long Island, is where Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner moved in the winter of 1945. And it was here where the Abstract Expressionists would send a seismic tremor through the art world.<\/p>\n

\"pollock-krasner-house.jpg<\/p>\n

The Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center on Long Island.<\/p>\n

CBS News<\/p>\n

It was their home and workplace. The married couple moved into a house with no plumbing or heating. “It was really a choice that they made to come out here, to go into isolation almost to really focus on the work,” said the Center’s director Matthew K. Ward.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now an historical site run by Stony Brook University, the Pollock-Krasner House looks much as it did when Krasner died in 1984.<\/p>\n

Ward showed us the custom-made speaker system that Pollack himself wired through a crawlspace. It has paint all over it. “Yeah, a lot of stuff here has paint all over it!” Ward laughed. <\/p>\n

\"jackson-pollock-lee-krasner-hans-namuth-55-2100.jpg<\/p>\n

Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner in the Long Island studio, 1950.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Photograph by Hans Namuth; courtesy of Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, East Hampton, N.Y.<\/p>\n

Krasner worked in an upstairs bedroom \u2013 small, but with a view of Accabonac Creek. Pollock painted in the barn out back, but without an easel. “No \u2013 that’s kind of Jackson’s thing,” Ward said.<\/p>\n

Pollack stretched his canvases out on the floor, and would pour, drip, and splatter paint from above down onto the canvas. The floor is a work of art in itself. Ward said, “The way Pollock worked was so physical. I think we feel him through the floor.” <\/p>\n

\"inside-pollock-krasner-barn-studio.jpg<\/p>\n

Inside the barn that was Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner’s studio. \u00a0<\/p>\n

CBS News<\/p>\n

The entire art world changed right here. In fact, Ward said, “The most modern work anybody had ever seen was made in this rustic space.”<\/p>\n

In 1949, Life magazine famously asked of Pollack<\/a>, “Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?”<\/p>\n

And yet, many people who might show up at the Pollack-Krasner House may ask, “Who’s Lee Krasner?” After a new show at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, no more.<\/p>\n

In “Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous,”<\/a> for the first time the two artists’ careers are considered together. “We hopefully prime you for this idea of creative adjacency, two careers in parallel,” said co-curator Brinda Kumar. <\/p>\n

Early in the exhibition, you see Krasner’s work on the left wall, and Pollock’s through a portal. “You automatically understand, hopefully, how this dialogue is happening across the studio, across the lawn,” Kumar said.<\/p>\n

\"view-of-krasner-and-pollock-past-continuous.jpg<\/p>\n

A view of the exhibition “Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous,” at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.\u00a0<\/p>\n

CBS News<\/p>\n

Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming. Krasner was the child of Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn. So, why did they hit it off?<\/p>\n

“A very good question!” said co-curator David Breslin. “I think for Pollock to meet someone who had that degree of sheer intelligence, bravado, I think her connections weren’t a bad thing.”<\/p>\n

As to what attracted Krasner to Pollock, Breslin said, “I don’t know if she needed him. She was drawn to his work. Who the man was who could have made that work almost became a riddle that she wanted to solve.”<\/p>\n

That riddle proved confounding. Pollock drank heavily, and had affairs. “She has this great line that says something along the lines of, ‘Unfortunately, I have the fortune of being married to Jackson Pollock,'” said Breslin. <\/p>\n

But in the mid-1950s, Krasner left for Paris. Jackson moved his girlfriend, Ruth Kligman, into the house and, said Breslin, “things kind of went to hell.”<\/p>\n

In 1956, Pollock died in a car crash. Kligman, also in the car, survived, but a friend did not.<\/p>\n

Krasner went back to the house in Springs. She would aggressively promote Pollock’s legacy as a painter, but she now took over his studio.<\/p>\n

According to Breslin, “He dies; she’s unleashed.”<\/p>\n

Kumar said, “Moving into the barn after Pollock’s death allowed her to work on an unprecedented scale as well.”<\/p>\n

In the Sixties, she’d paint “Through Blue,” “Right Bird Left,” and “Combat.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"through-blue-lee-krasner-1280.jpg<\/p>\n

“Through Blue” by Lee Krasner (1963). Oil on canvas. Currently on view in the exhibition “Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous,” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.<\/p>\n

Private Collection; \u00a9 2025 Pollock-Krasner Foundation\/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.<\/p>\n

“These are painted directly on the wall,” Kumar said. “There’s a kind of ferocity. And today if you go to Springs, you’ll see the kind of ghostly outlines [from the canvases].”<\/p>\n

Krasner lived and worked here for another 28 years after Pollock’s death. Ward said, “This home is filled with ephemera that belonged to both of them. Lee wanted Jackson’s legacy to live on just as her own, and she wanted them to live on together.”<\/p>\n

In effect, the exhibition “Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous” tries to rewrite history and change the mythology about these artists. Breslin said, “Our exhibition really has been an effort to say she’s an equal.”<\/p>\n

\"pollock-krasner-installation-view-a-083-1920.jpg<\/p>\n

An installation view of “Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous,” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Anna-Marie Kellen\/Metropolitan Museum of Art<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0
Story produced by Julie Kracov. Editor: Carol Ross.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For more info:<\/p>\n

Credits:\u00a0<\/p>\n

Photographs by Hans Namuth. Courtesy of Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, East Hampton, N.Y.Photograph by Wilfrid Zogbaum. Courtesy Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, East Hampton, N.Y.Photograph by Rudolph Burckhardt. \u00a9 Estate of Rudolph Burckhardt, courtesy Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, East Hampton, N.Y.Photograph by Halley Erskine. Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner papers, circa 1914-1984. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. \u00a9 2025 Pollock-Krasner Foundation\/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.Portraits of Krasner by Paul De Vries, circa 1960-1961. Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner papers, circa 1914-1984. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.Photograph by Larry Larkin. Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner papers, circa 1914-1984. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner papers, circa 1914-1984. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.<\/p>\n

See also:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n

\n Go deeper with The Free Press\n <\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The old farmhouse in the hamlet of Springs, N.Y., is easy to miss, if not for the sign…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,501,156,18778,61034,18568,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-634559","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-jackson-pollock","tag-lee-krasner","tag-modern-art","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634559","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=634559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}