Philomathia: Lee Krasner

The Leonard Lopate Show had Gail Levin on who just wrote a new biography of Lee Krasner. Since I learned virtually everything I know about her from the Pollock movie, I'm glad someone restored this woman to her rightful place in the art world. She was an Abstract Expressionist herself, as Levin learned when she went to interview her about Pollock's legacy years ago and this she only found out because the gallery owner that was hosting the interview said, "You know, she's a painter too." She is best known for the 14 year period of her life she spent with Pollock and then for being a fierce protector of his legacy after he died in 1956. But her paintings are well regarded in the art world and do fetch high prices at auction-although, far less than Pollock's of course. Biography has a short piece about her here and here is a picture of Pollock and Krasner together, accompanied by a story about how artist/wives get short shrift in general (although there are big exceptions like Georgia O'Keefe and Frida Kahlo and since Krasner spent so much time promoting Pollock's legacy, perhaps this was partly inevitable.)

So one of the things I thought was interesting was Lopate mentioned he didn't want to get into the circumstances of Pollock's death (drunk driving accident that also killed a passenger) because his girlfriend Ruth Kligman who was also a passenger in the car at the time had been on the show. I remember her from the movie where she was played by Jennifer Connelly and which did not portray her in a flattering light. Apparently, she was a figure in the art world herself although it's debatable as to how much of that is because of her predilection for dating famous artists. She seemed to hook up with a lot of artists (Pollock of course, De Kooning, Jasper Johns, and she claimed Andy Warhol had a crush on her which, yeah ok.) And she was a painter herself-she has a website with a cross-section of her work. She died in 2010.