Lee Krasner Biography Quotes 15 Report mistakes

Early Life and Education
Lee Krasner (born 1908 in Brooklyn, New York) grew up the daughter of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, in a household that valued resilience and ambition. From an early age she set her sights on becoming an artist, an uncommon goal for a young woman at the time. She studied at Washington Irving High School's art program, then at Cooper Union and the National Academy of Design, where rigorous draftsmanship and life drawing were central. Though she mastered academic technique, she chafed at its conservatism and sought a path toward modernism. In the late 1930s she enrolled in classes with Hans Hofmann, whose teachings on color, structure, and the push-pull dynamics of form proved decisive. Hofmann's admiration for her work, even as he voiced the era's gendered biases, affirmed her seriousness and potential.

WPA Years and the Turn to Abstraction
During the Great Depression, Krasner worked for the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project, connecting her to a vital network of artists committed to public art and experimentation. The WPA years exposed her to mural scale and the logistics of professional production. She participated in the American Abstract Artists group, engaging debates around Cubism, Surrealism, and nonobjective painting that would inform the New York School's rise.

New York School and Artistic Community
In the 1940s, Krasner became part of the emerging avant-garde centered in downtown New York. She developed friendships and professional ties with Willem de Kooning and Elaine de Kooning, encountered critics Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg, and navigated a gallery scene that included Peggy Guggenheim and Betty Parsons. These relationships were not merely social; they constituted a critical infrastructure for an artist seeking visibility in a male-dominated field. Krasner argued forcefully for abstraction's relevance and for her own place within it.

Partnership with Jackson Pollock
Krasner met Jackson Pollock in the early 1940s and the two married in 1945, soon moving to a modest house in Springs, East Hampton. Their partnership was intellectually intense and professionally intertwined. Krasner introduced Pollock to key figures, advocated for his work, and helped manage opportunities that followed his breakthrough. At the same time, she continued building her own practice, developing the "Little Image" paintings in the late 1940s, dense, rhythmic surfaces marked by calligraphic brushwork and a meticulous overall structure that paralleled, but did not imitate, Pollock's innovations. The relationship was complicated by Pollock's alcoholism, but their exchanges in the studio remained foundational to both artists' development.

Artistic Evolution
Krasner's work shifted across decades with notable clarity of purpose. After the intimate scale of the "Little Image" series, she turned to collages, cutting and recomposing pieces of her own earlier drawings and paintings into dynamic new configurations. Following Pollock's death in 1956, she moved into his barn studio, adopting a larger scale that amplified her gestures and tonal range. The late 1950s and early 1960s saw bodies of work often identified as "Earth Green" and later "Umber" or "Night Journeys", which channel grief, insomnia, and physical urgency into sweeping forms and forceful contrasts. Krasner's collages of the 1960s reasserted color and lyricism, while her paintings of the 1970s embraced bold palette shifts and expansive composition, consolidating decades of experimentation into a confident, personal language.

Exhibitions, Recognition, and Advocacy
Krasner exhibited steadily in New York and abroad, with mounting critical recognition from the 1960s onward. A seminal retrospective at the Whitechapel Gallery in London in 1965 signaled international esteem at a time when few women received such attention. As the historical narrative of Abstract Expressionism was reexamined, scholars and curators increasingly acknowledged her contributions alongside those of peers such as Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Arshile Gorky, Franz Kline, and Robert Motherwell. She remained a commanding advocate for her own work and that of her cohort, navigating critical currents shaped by figures like Greenberg and Rosenberg and maintaining dialogues with artists including the de Koonings. She also worked diligently to steward Pollock's legacy without allowing it to eclipse her own.

Later Years and Legacy
Krasner continued to produce major paintings into the 1970s and early 1980s, and her work was reassessed by a rising generation of curators and historians, including feminist voices who emphasized the structural barriers she had confronted. She died in 1984 in New York, leaving behind an oeuvre that spans intimate canvases and monumental abstractions, as well as a reputation for intellectual rigor, formal audacity, and perseverance. Through her estate planning, she ensured ongoing support for artists: the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, established after her death in accordance with her wishes, became a significant grant-making institution. The couple's home and studios in Springs are preserved as a study center, a testament to a partnership that helped catalyze a modern American art movement. Today, Krasner's paintings and collages are held in major museums worldwide, and her career stands as a model of sustained innovation, demonstrating how an artist can both shape and challenge the narrative of her time.

Our collection contains 15 quotes who is written by Lee, under the main topics: Art - Soulmate - Nostalgia.

Other people realated to Lee: Jackson Pollock (Artist), Ed Harris (Actor), Helen Frankenthaler (Artist)