Culturally Curious: Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, & Abstract Expressionism
On Thursday, September 21, 2023 at 7:00 p.m., I watched the webinar Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, & Abstract Expressionism lead by Jane Oneail of Culturally Curious. I have previously watched three talks by Oneail: Revolutionary Design: Modern Architecture in New England in May 2023, George Tooker: Modern Life & Magical Realism in June 2023, and Seaside Escapes: The Art & Architecture of the New England Coast in August 2023. Just like for the past two talks, the event was sponsored by the Greater Manchester Integrated Library Cooperative or GMILCS, which describes itself as “a nonprofit consortium of public and academic libraries in New Hampshire”.
Preamble
Oneail began with a preamble describing the evolution of Western European art data from the 15th century. In the tradition of icons funded by the Catholic Church, artists attempted to create “the illusion of a window into the world”. Biblical imagery like The Annunciation, a painting by an anonymous artist now at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, created realistic scenes of saints and angels. Fast-forwarding to the early 20th century, artists experimented with abstract expressionism. Pablo Picasso designed flattened forms, Piet Mondrian experimented with geometry, and Joan Miró drew biomorphic figures by “summoning them from his unconscious”. Hans Hoffman and Janet Sobel invented drip painting, a technique later adopted by Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner. By the 1950s, the movement culminated in the work of Pollock. His work was so recognizable to everyday Americans that Norman Rockwell included an homage in a 1962 cover from the Saturday Evening Post. At the same time, people have questioned “the apparent ease of execution” and the prices of the paintings.
Jackson Pollock’s Early Years
Oneail explained that before Pollock because a world-renown artist, he was the troubled youngest child in a family of five artistic sons. One of his brothers, Charles Pollock, served as a mentor after their birth father abandoned the family but enabled the teenager’s alcoholism. The pair went to New York City to study art under Thomas Hart Benton, who painted realistic depictions of sharecroppers picking cotton during the Great Depression in the 1930s. Artists at this time benefited from New Deal Programs like the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Federal Art Project (FAP). During this time, Mexican muralist like Diego Rivera, David Siqueiros, and José Clemente Orozco travelled to the United States. Pollock was drawn to the work of Siqueiros, particularly Collective Suicide (1936) now held at MoMA. The young artist frequently visited the MET and saw works by Picasso, including Guernica. He also enjoyed live demonstrations of Native American sand painting.
At the same time, Pollock realized he needed to work on his mental health. During the late 1930s, he had developed severe alcoholism and depression. He visited several therapists who used Jungian analysis to “prove his unconscious” and analyze his artwork, looking for clues about what was making him sick. Because of his diagnoses, he was declared unfit for military service and ineligible to serve in World War II.
By the early 1940s, Pollock met Lee Krasner, a fellow artist who he would eventually marry. At this time, Pollock stopped creating paintings that resembled something, like Birth (1941) at the Tate and She-Wolf (1943) at MoMA. He abandoned figurative images and turned fully to abstract expressionism. Heiress Peggy Guggenheim commissioned him to make nineteen-foot-long Mural (1943) to hang in her New York City apartment, which she later donated to the Stanley Museum at the University of Iowa. With this money, Pollock and Krasner bought a house in Springs, NY, which Oneail described as “as far away from New York City as you can get and still be on Long Island”. This move allowed Pollock to temporarily get sober and have the most prolific years of his art career.
Catapult to Fame
Oneail spoke of this period of Pollock’s life as his “Catapult to Fame”. In an unheated barn behind the Springs house, Pollock painted massive drip paintings like Shimmering Substance (1946) at MoMA, Eyes in the Heat (1946) at the Guggenheim, and Autumn Rhythm (Number 30) at the MET. He used paint straight from the tube, brushes, sticks, his fingers, and turkey basters to launch the paint onto the massive canvases laid across the floor. A 1949 article in Life asked, “Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?”, while the 1951 list of best exhibits from the previous year published by ARTnews put Pollock on the top. A 1952 advertisement for Schlitz Beer featured a Pollock reference near an oversized print of a bottle. Lee Krasner shelved her own career to keep Pollock in the spotlight, called journalists, galleries, and museums to show his work.
Pollock’s Death & Legacy
Oneail sadly explained that Pollock’s productivity did not last. By 1956, he was “creatively blocked”, cheating on his wife with twenty-six year old Ruth Kligman, and drinking again. He flipped his car while driving drunk, which killed himself and twenty-five year old Edith Metzger, while Kligman was badly insured. Pollock was forty-four years old. Oneail described his life and death as an “archetype of a tragic, tormented artist”. The MET hosted a retrospective exhibit of his work merely four months after his death.
Introduction to Lee Krasner
Not to be forgotten was long-suffering Lee Krasner. She began life as Lena Krassner, the youngest of six children born into a Ukrainian-Jewish family in Brooklyn, NY. Her family allowed her to study art, and she received an extensive education. Among her earliest works was a self-portrait she completed at nineteen years old as a submission to the National Academy of Design in New York City. Despite obvious merit, her portrait was rejected in a combination of sexism and anti-Semitism. Restyling herself to have an androgynous, Anglo-Saxon first name, Krasner worked with Hoffmann and adopted his cubist style. She joined the FAP but was only permitted to enlarge sketches created by other artists, rather than design her own murals. Upon marrying Pollock, she received a small studio inside their house while he took the barn. She covered all cooking and cleaning to give Pollock maximum time to paint.
A Talent in the Shadows
During her marriage to Pollock, she created smaller works that mimicked his signature styles. Paintings like Untitled (1946) and Abstract #2 (1947) are held by her foundation, while other works like Composition (1949) at the Philadelphia Museum of Art appear in shows. During a 1949 show that she held with Pollock called Artist: Man & Wife, critics belittled her paintings. As her marriage to Pollock deteriorated, Krasner destroyed old work and integrated the pieces into new work, such as her paintings Shattered Night (1954) now in a private collection and Bald Eagle (1955).
Krasner progressed through several art series throughout her career. Many of these later works went into private collections or museums. After Pollock’s death, she channeled her rage and pain into the Earth Green Series. Next, struggles with insomnia forced her to work at night under artificial light. She created the Umber Series in shades of orange and brown with esoteric names like The Eye Is the First Circle (1960). Her Primary Series during the 1960s and early 1970s saw a return to bright colors, florals, and plants with works like Rising Green (1972) at the MET.
Death & Legacy
Krasner died in 1984 at the age of seventy-five. Within six months, the MOMA held her retrospective exhibit. Krasner founded a pair of organizations to preserve the legacy of herself and her husband. Pollock-Krasner House & Studio Center is a museum managed by Stony Brook University, while Pollock-Krasner Foundation owns the originals and digital copyright to many of their works. Today, Krasner’s painting are highly valuable and have sold for millions of dollars. She is finally receiving the recognition she deserves.
Conclusion
As with her previous talks, Oneail’s presentation style is energetic and engaging, filled with beautiful artwork, and described with a balance of facts and humor. I knew little about Jackson Pollock and less about Lee Krasner before this talk, but I am now intrigued to look up more of their works. My only grievance is that the talk began late and ran overtime, so I was unable to stay for the full conclusion and the Q&A due to another commitment. Overall, I look forward to the next Culturally Curious installment.