$Refractions$

Refractions

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Lee Krasner
Refractions
1962

About the Item

Lee Krasner (American 1908-1984) "Refractions" 1962 ed. 19/70 Lithograph Signed & Dated Lower Right Titled & Edition Lower Left 28.3" x 32.8" x 1" inches framed 18" x 22.5" inches unframed Biography from The Columbus Museum of Art, Georgia. Unfortunately for Lee Krasner, much of her reputation is based on her marriage to fellow artist and 20th century icon Jackson Pollock. She is treated far too often as a spouse and not as a serious artist to be respected in her right, and frequently critics dismiss her work. Traditionally trained at the Cooper Union and the National Academy for Design, Krasner struggled to find an identity for her art. That struggle ceased until her tutelage under the noted theorist and teacher Hans Hofmann. At Hofmann's school she discovered support and encouragement to experiment with abstraction, learning from European moderns such as the Cubists and Surrealists in order to surpass their movements. She became an integral part of American abstraction, formulating with others the success of a truly American art movement—Abstract Expressionism. In fact, she existed as a key female abstract expressionist within a masculine world. During an interview in 1984 Krasner was questioned about the machismo of abstract expressionists. She replied, "It is quite clear that I didn't fit into it, although I never felt I didn't. I was not accepted; let me put it that way. What made things very possible for me were that Pollock, whom I lived with, respected, appreciated, and did not view my work this way. However, that was just between us. So then I got going on my merry way. With relation to the group, if you are going to call them a group, there was no room for a woman." Early in her studies Krasner explored portraiture, using herself as a model on several occasions. She also developed through academic figure studies of the nude. Some of her strongest early paintings focus on the still life and her use of its subject matter to progress through abstraction. The figure itself remains omitted or absent from traditional representation in her work with the exception of some cubist figure studies, all of which are drawings. Before her work evolved into unadulterated abstraction, paintings from the early 1940s reflect her control of subject matter, command of modernism, and experimentation to fuse elements into something new. Krasner explored the still life in a similar manner on at least fourteen canvases, most of which are untitled and all date from 1940 to 1943. When asked about these paintings during an interview in 1970, Krasner replied, "The paintings I would have been showing in American Abstract Artists were abstract, Picassoid, with heavy black lines, brilliant intense colors, and thick impasto." Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque had already transformed still lifes, and it is Krasner's homage to their ideas of Cubism, as well as the influence of Piet Mondrian that she explored in this series.

Creator:
Lee Krasner (1908-1984, American)
Creation Year:
1962
Dimensions:
Height: 28.3 in (71.89 cm)Width: 32.8 in (83.32 cm)Depth: 1 in (2.54 cm)
Medium:
Lithograph
Movement & Style:
Abstract Expressionist
Period:
20th Century
Condition:
Condition reports are provided to our clients only upon request. While our specialist strive for accuracy, any condition report is an opinion and Osuna Art & Antiques shall not be liable for any omission or error with regard to an item's description.
Gallery Location:
Kensington, MD
Reference Number:
Seller: Inventory no. MA-186 1stDibs: LU2103648921

Shop All Lee Krasner

Lee Krasner

A pioneer of Abstract Expressionism, artist Lee Krasner’s pivotal role in that movement and her exceptional contributions to it were largely overshadowed by those of her male contemporaries — in particular, Jackson Pollock, whom she married in 1945.

Lee Krasner was born Lena Krassner in Brooklyn, New York, to Russian-Jewish refugee parents. She attended the Women’s Art School of Cooper Union and the esteemed National Academy of Design, graduating in 1932 during the height of the Great Depression. Krasner supported herself as a model and cocktail waitress until 1934, when she began painting murals for the Works Progress Administration, which kept her steadily employed until the agency closed in 1943. During that time, Krasner studied under Hans Hofmann and became a fixture on the New York art scene, joining the American Abstract Artists and the Artists Union.

A World War II–era commission had Krasner overseeing the creation of 19 pro-war store window displays in New York City. She recruited a handful of artists she dubbed her “misfits” for the project. Among them were Willem de Kooning and Pollock.

Throughout their 11-year marriage, Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner had an indelible influence on each other. While he painted in the bright, expansive barn studio, she worked in a small bedroom, where she produced her “Little Images” series, small-scale works loaded with paint, today considered among her most important contributions to Abstract Expressionism.

Lee Krasner’s art includes rich mosaics, Cubist drawings, assemblages and the epochal collages she produced in 1954–55, which incorporated scraps from her and Pollock’s discarded work and echoed the striking palettes of Matisse, one of her heroes. Krasner’s collages remain among her most celebrated pieces.

After Pollock’s death in 1956, Krasner moved into his barn studio, where she created large-scale paintings, including the 17-foot-wide The Seasons. She had her long-overdue first solo exhibition at London’s Whitechapel Gallery in 1965, and her second in 1975 at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Those and other major solo exhibitions finally brought her the recognition she deserved for her contributions to the art world.

In 1978, Krasner was given her rightful place next to the likes of Mark Rothko, de Kooning and Pollock in the Whitney’s exhibition “Abstract Expressionism: The Formative Years.” Her U.S. retrospective opened at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in 1983 and ended at the Museum of Modern Art in New York after her death in 1984.

Lee Krasner’s paintings continue to be in high demand. In 2019, her 1960 work The Eye Is the First Circle sold at auction for $11.7 million, breaking her 2017 auction record of $5.5 million.

Find a collection of Lee Krasner art on 1stDibs.