KRASNER, LEE

born Oct. 27, 1908, Brooklyn, N.Y., U.S. died June 19, 1984, New York, N.Y. original name Lenore Krassner American painter whose significance as a force in the early Abstract Expressionist movement was long obscured by her status as the wife of renowned artist Jackson Pollock. Krasner was the sixth of seven children of Jewish emigrants from Odessa, Russia (now Ukraine). When she was 13 she decided to become an artist and was admitted on her second application to Washington Irving High School, the only public high school in New York City at that time that offered women professional art training. After graduation she studied first at the Women's Art School of Cooper Union and then, in her early 20s, at the National Academy of Design, both in New York City. The New Deal's Federal Art Project enabled Krasner to work full-time as an artist from 1934 to 1943. During that time she also studied with Abstract Expressionist painter Hans Hofmann. In 1940 Krasner began exhibiting her work with that of other American abstract artists and immersed herself in the New York art world, which was in the midst of a period of intense ideological ferment. In 1942 she met Pollock, whose work was being exhibited along with hers at an important show in a New York gallery. Krasner was struck by the power of his work, and the two artists became friends. After their 1945 marriage the couple moved to a farm in East Hampton, New York. Until Pollock's death 11 years later in an automobile accident, Krasner and Pollock produced a large body of work, each under the other's influence. During this time Pollock produced the famous drip paintings with which his name is associated. Krasner was instrumental in advancing his career, and after his death she saw his works placed in major institutions. For the first 25 years after Pollock's death, Krasner's reputation was eclipsed by his, but a 1981 show in New York, Krasner/Pollock: A Working Relationship, helped demonstrate that she was both his artistic partner and a significant artist in her own right. Her work, usually categorized as Abstract Expressionism of the New York school, is included in the collections of the world's major museums. In addition to painting, she produced numerous drawings and collages. Her work is notable for its energy, rhythms, and, especially in her later work, use of colour.