The Metropolitan Museum of Art is showcasing the works of Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock in a new exhibition, Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous, which features over 120 paintings, works on paper, and ephemera. The show aims to capture the full scope of their careers, from their early days as part of the New York School to their turbulent marriage and Krasner’s life after Pollock’s death.
Met curators David Breslin and Brinda Kumar note that the exhibition provides a unique opportunity to see both artists’ works side by side, allowing visitors to appreciate their respective practices in a new light. They observe that while art-world sexism may have contributed to a delay in Krasner’s recognition, she was respected as a major artist in her lifetime and is now recognized as essential to mid-20th-century innovation.
Early Influences and Career
Krasner’s early work was influenced by the European avant-garde, whereas Pollock’s inspirations came from the Regionalist movement, Native American art, and the Mexican muralists. The two artists met in 1942, when they were both included in an exhibition at New York’s McMillen Gallery. Krasner later described Pollock’s work as having created “a violent transition and upheaval” in her own practice.
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After the pair married and decamped to a homestead in Long Island in 1945, she hit what she described as a ‘dead’ period, producing ‘grey slabs’ from a bedroom studio, while giving her husband the run of the property’s barn, encouraging him to develop his famous style. By 1949, Life magazine was asking whether Pollock was America’s “greatest living painter”. Krasner, who had been better known than Pollock when they met, helped cultivate this image.
Breakthroughs and Legacy
Krasner eventually had her own breakthrough, painting what she called “Little Images,” which featured fine molecular figurations. The exhibition also highlights Pollock’s abandonment of the drip style in 1951, when he created a series of mysterious black pourings. After Pollock’s death in 1956, Krasner took over the barn as her studio and produced a monumental swirling abstraction, The Seasons (1957), which is presented as her response to the challenge of continuing to paint without her husband.
The exhibition Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous runs from October 4 to January 31 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10028. For more information, visit metmuseum.org. Learn about our subscription offers
