LEE KRASNER (1908-1984)

Lenore “Lee” Krasner (1908-1984) was a well-known American Abstract Expressionist who worked in oil on canvas, ink and charcoal drawings, and mixed-media collage, in which she often her cut up and reassembled her own work. Her work is often associated with the so-called “first generation” post-war New York School, although she was unique among them in her penchant for changing materials, subject matter, texture, and style—exploring Hard Edge, Action Painting, and Color Field painting—throughout her career. Her work often touched on themes of the self, nature, and modern life. Notoriously self-critical, Krasner was known to destroy her own work, resulting in a small body of surviving works (599 known). Although Krasner is often remembered as the wife of Jackson Pollack, their relationship was mutually influential and she rose to prominence in her own right. Krasner was featured in a major exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1969, The New American Painting and Sculpture: The First Generation.

A Christie’s auction of Celebration (1960) in 2003 garnered a sale more than 4 times its presale estimate ($1.9 million). Krasner is one of the only female artists to receive a retrospective of her work at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).

Krasner’s work is in the Tate, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Metropolitcan Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, Albright-Knox Gallery, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Australia, and Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields.