Lee Krasner

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Lore & Background

By the 1940s, Krasner was an established figure among the American abstract artists of the New York School, with a network including painters such as Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko. However, Krasner's career was often overshadowed by that of her husband, Jackson Pollock, whom she married in 1945. Their marriage was marred by Pollock's infidelity and alcoholism. Pollock's untimely death in a drunk-driving incident in 1956, which left her as the executor of his estate at the peak of Pollock's career, had a lasting emotional impact on Krasner. The late 1950s to the early 1960s in Krasner's work were characterized by a more expressive and gestural style. In her later years, she received broader artistic and commercial recognition and shifted toward large horizontal paintings marked by hard-edge lines and bright contrasting colors. During her life, Krasner received numerous honorary degrees, including an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from Stony Brook University.

Reader's Guide

Lee Krasner's significance lies in her sustained, evolving contribution to Abstract Expressionism despite operating in the shadow of her more famous husband. Her work defied a single signature style, often alternating between classic structure and baroque action, open form and hard-edge shape, and bright color and monochrome palette. She would often cut apart her own drawings and paintings to create her collage paintings. She also commonly revised or completely destroyed an entire series of works due to her critical nature; as a result, her surviving body of work is relatively small. Her catalogue raisonné, published in 1995 by Abrams, lists 599 known pieces. Critic Robert Hughes posthumously described her as "the Mother Courage of Abstract Expressionism." A posthumous retrospective exhibition of her work was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in Springs, New York and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation were established to preserve the work and cultural influence of her and her husband. The latter has since focused on supporting new artists and art historical scholarship in American art.

Did You Know?

• Krasner was the only one of six children to be born in the United States; her parents were Jewish-Ukrainian immigrants who fled antisemitism and the Russo-Japanese War.
• She almost didn't graduate high school because her grade in art—the subject she attended the school for—was only a 65, the minimum to pass.
• Hans Hofmann once told her, 'This is so good, you would never know it was done by a woman.'
• Piet Mondrian praised her work, saying, 'You have a very strong inner rhythm; you must never lose it.'
• Her catalogue raisonné, published in 1995, lists 599 known pieces, a relatively small body of work because she often revised or destroyed entire series.

Artistic Formation and Academic Training

Lee Krasner's path into painting began with a deliberate choice: as a teenager in Brooklyn, she specifically sought out Washington Irving High School for Girls because it offered an art major. She went on to earn a scholarship to the Women's Art School of Cooper Union, where she completed coursework for a teaching certificate, and then pursued further study at the National Academy of Design between 1928 and 1932. This rigorous technical training gave her a deep command of Old Master techniques and anatomical figure drawing. A turning point arrived in 1929, when the newly opened Museum of Modern Art exposed her to Post-Impressionism, sparking a lasting fascination with modern art and a growing skepticism toward the academic conventions she had absorbed. In 1937 she enrolled in the classes of Hans Hofmann, whose emphasis on the two-dimensional picture plane and color-driven spatial illusion pushed her into an advanced neo-cubist mode. Hofmann, known for his harshness, once stood before her easel and told her the work was so strong he could not tell it was made by a woman. Piet Mondrian separately urged her to preserve what he called her "very strong inner rhythm."

Rising in the New York School

During the Great Depression, Krasner supported herself by joining the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project, where she worked in the mural division as an assistant to Max Spivak, enlarging other artists' designs. When the War Services era arrived, her output shifted toward war propaganda artworks. By the 1940s, she had become an established figure among the American abstract painters of the New York School, building a close-knit network that included Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko. Her work was firmly associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, her paintings took on a more expressive and gestural quality, a visible evolution from the structured neo-cubism of her Hofmann years. In her later career, she received broader artistic and commercial recognition and pivoted toward large horizontal compositions defined by hard-edge lines and bright, contrasting color fields, a vocabulary that set her apart from the more gestural abstractions of her peers.

Marriage, Loss, and the Shadow of Pollock

Krasner married Jackson Pollock in 1945, a union that would define how the art world perceived her for the rest of her life. Her career was frequently overshadowed by his, and the marriage itself was strained by his infidelity and chronic alcoholism. The relationship ended not by divorce but by tragedy: in 1956, Pollock died in a drunk-driving accident, leaving Krasner as the executor of his estate at the very peak of his fame. The emotional weight of that loss was profound and lasting, and it cast a long shadow over her subsequent creative output. Yet she did not disappear from the canvas. In the years following his death, her work grew more expressive and gestural, suggesting an artist processing grief through increasingly physical mark-making. She continued to paint, to exhibit, and to build her own body of work, even as the public narrative remained stubbornly anchored to the name Pollock.

Legacy and Posthumous Recognition

Krasner's later years brought a degree of recognition that had eluded her for decades. She received numerous honorary degrees, including an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from Stony Brook University, and her large horizontal paintings with their hard-edge geometry and vivid color contrasts found a wider audience. After her death in June 1984, the art world moved to correct the historical record. Critic Robert Hughes famously called her "the Mother Courage of Abstract Expressionism," a phrase that captured both her resilience and her foundational role in a movement long credited almost exclusively to men. A posthumous retrospective of her work was mounted at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in Springs, New York, was established to preserve the studio and cultural influence of both artists, while the Pollock-Krasner Foundation has since directed its resources toward supporting emerging artists and advancing art-historical scholarship in American painting.