At nearly every stage of her 15-year marriage to the universally recognized Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner was quicker to respond to stylistic innovations in the art world than her husband. Pollock either didn't catch on to the art-world developments that surrounded him or incorporated changes much later than Krasner did. Some critics read Krasner's dynamic painting style as evidence of her superiority as an artist, but others saw her porousness as a problem, and Pollock's comparative insularity as one key to his uniqueness. In Lee Krasner, Robert Hobbs gracefully analyzes the many forces--of personality, education, and cultural and political milieu--that shaped Krasner's 60-year devotion to art; in the process, he elucidates the many reasons her "artistically constructed self remains provisional."

B.H. Friedman, Pollock's first biographer, introduces the book with a gripping series of intimate, you-are-there diary entries from the long years of his friendship with the two artists. Then Hobbs weaves biography and critical interpretation to develop the main text of the book. The reproductions of Krasner's drawings and paintings (97 in color) are excellent, giving a fair picture of her long career, and there are more than a score of black-and-white archival photos of Krasner and the other early abstract expressionists. The book has a few odd omissions though, such as any reference to Mark Tobey, whose "white writing" paintings and others are so closely related stylistically to Krasner's work of the 1940s. Still, this is the respectful but objective book Krasner's vigorous work and forceful personality deserve. It sheds sympathetic light on her lifelong, intellectually rigorous, artistic questing. --Peggy Moorman


From Publishers Weekly
This impressive critical-biographical study confirms Lee Krasner (1908-1984) as one of the major abstract expressionist artists. Though heavily influenced by her husband Jackson Pollock, she challenged and eventually abandoned his style through a series of paintings that Hobbs interprets as a feminist critique of the macho-oriented art of Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and their cronies. An art history professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, Hobbs follows Krasner, daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn, as she transforms herself from well-connected, belligerent young avant-garde painter to supportive, possessive, acquiescent wife and then to an eclectic pioneer who used her art as an intense confrontation with her subconscious. Her swirling biomorphs, jagged collages, radiant lush abstractions, mythic fragments and apocalyptic images of cities are among the works reproduced in 48 color and 67 b & w plates. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Hobbs was drawn to Lee Krasner because of her unique role as the only major woman abstract expressionist to emerge from the early years of the movement. His profile turns out to be a study in polarities. Even her appearance had a push and pull to it. She was blessed with a beautiful body--she often modeled in her youth--but a strong, almost belligerent face. This inherent contrariness contributed to the tension in her marriage to fellow painter Jackson Pollock, whose self-destructive lifestyle epitomized abstract expressionism in its initial eruption. Although better known than he when they met, Krasner sacrificed her own career to nurture his while enduring his binges and infidelities. And still another conflict, the competition between intellect and instinct as a wellspring of art, underlies much of Krasner's emotionally intense and powerfully worked paintings. By examining the strongest canvases and collages that Krasner executed at each stage of her aesthetic journey, Hobbs shows how the "theme of the self" shaped all her compositions, from the incredible complexity of her early work to the more open and flowing creations of her later years. This is a fine and important addition to the Modern Masters series. Donna Seaman


From the Publisher
This is a complete reappraisal of Lee Krasner (1908-1984), who, along with her husband, Jackson Pollock, was among the artists who launched the New York School of painting after World War II. One of the few critically recognized female Abstract Expressionists of her generation, she has emerged as an essential figure in postwar American art. This lavishly illustrated book, the companion to a major traveling exhibition, takes a fresh look at Krasner and highlights the striking originality and complexity of her work. Krasner saw her art as an open-ended exploration and a dialogue with a wide range of artistic, literary, and cultural voices. Complete with never-before-published excerpts from the diary of writer B. H. Friedman, a longtime associate of Krasner's who provides priceless insights into this pivotal period of American history, this book is essential for any art library. This book and the exhibition it accompanies were developed by Independent Curators International (ICI), a non-profit organization that creates innovative, provocative traveling exhibitions of contemporary art that have been presented in museums and university galleries worldwide. 105 illustrations, 80 in full color, 9 x 12" Robert Hobbs is Rhoda Thalhimer Professor of Art History at Virginia Commonwealth University. He has curated or co-curated more than 30 exhibitions and is the author of Abrams' Edward Hopper, among other books. B. H. FRIEDMAN is an art historian and writer who associated with the artists of the New York School. Exhibition Schedule Los Angeles County Museum of Art Oct. 10, 1999-Jan. 3, 2000 Des Moines Art Center, Iowa Feb. 26-May 21, 2000 Akron Art Museum, Ohio June 10-Aug. 27, 2000 Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York Oct. 6, 2000-Jan. 7, 2001

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The first monograph devoted to Krasner's work, this volume skillfully explores the twists and turns of her career, offering new information and insight about one of the most intriguing painters of the postwar era.

Lee Krasner never took the easy way out—not in life, not in art. Brought up in a poor Brooklyn neighborhood and originally named Lena Krassner by her immigrant parents, she decided early on to create a new name and a new identity for herself. Later, as one of the few female painters in the aggressively male circle of Abstract Expressionists, she had to contend not only with the critics' skepticism about their new way of making art but also with the skepticism that greeted any woman's attempts to become a professional artist.

Many of Krasner's male colleagues—including her husband, Jackson Pollock—developed a unique "signature" style that identified them throughout their careers. Krasner, however, experimented with one style after another, from her early geometric abstractions (created while she was one of Hans Hofmann's most talented students), through her large-scale organic images of mid-career, to the hard-edge compositions of her late years. Certain elements recur throughout—most notably, her distinctive sense of color, her affinity for swelling forms inspired by nature, and her fearlessness in experimenting with new techniques.

Krasner's unwillingness to stick to one style, her readiness to put her career aside to focus on Pollock's, and her feuds with some of the period's most powerful critics all reduced her visibility in the art world. She has been the subject of exhibition catalogs, but this is the first monograph devoted to her work,and it brings to light all the intriguing complexities of her approach to making art. Dr. Robert Hobbs skillfully explores the twists and turns of her career, offering new information and insight about one of the most intriguing painters of the postwar era.

About the Modern Masters series:

With infomative, enjoyable texts and over 100 illustrations—approximately 48 in full color—this innovative series offers a fresh look at the most creative and influential artists of the postwar era. The authors are highly respected art historians and critics chosen for their ability to think clearly and write well. Each handsomely designed volume presents a thorough survey of the artist's life and work, as well as statements by the artist, an illustrated chapter on technique, a chronology, lists of exhibitions and public collections, an annotated bibliography, and an index. Every art lover, from the casual museumgoer to the serious student, teacher, critic, or curator, will be eager to collect these Modern Masters. And with such a low price, they can afford to collect them all.

Other Details: 115 or more illustrations, approximately 48 in full color 128 pages 8 1/2 x 8 1/2" Published 1993

begin again by cutting up old paintings and using them to create new collages.

Given the number of different approaches that Krasner used in her art, she sometimes appeared to be unsure of her direction. But when one considers the quality of the works themselves and their relationship to the styles she was critiquing, her series of changes was fully justified. In the 1940s she was learning to value her intuition as a worthwhile source for her art. After coming to terms with this aspect of herself, she carried on an aesthetic conversation with the other Abstract Expressionists during the 1950s. To the formalist art of the 1960s and early 1970s, she brought a wealth of experience, a wide emotional range, and an ability to play with formal elements and at the same time deal with profoundly important metaphors. Later she developed many of the tactics of the postmodernists, who were emphasizing the problems inherent in art as a mode of communication. Although always an Abstract Expressionist, she carried on a dialogue with a number of new styles. In this respect she learned from Pablo Picasso, who played with both past and present art as sources. But unlike Picasso, who comprehended the complexities of his aesthetic games and enjoyed them immensely, Krasner distrusted her own intelligence. In her art she attempted instead to trust her unconscious to lead her to what she regarded as true feelings rather than socially conditioned responses.

The abrupt changes in Krasner's style, coupled with her consistently voiced adulation of Pollock's paintings and touch criticism of her own work, were probably responsible for delaying the critical acceptance of her art. Slights and perceived injustices from critics tended to make her furious, but she transformed her anger into astute critiques of the art theories promoted by those who infuriated her. Her fights with the two major critics of Abstract Expressionism, Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg, and her predilection for speaking her mind made her a force to be reckoned with, and often avoided. But as she told the critic Barbara Cavaliere in 1980: "Not having been a giant success in my life has been, in the end, a blessing. I can afford now to do as I wish. . . . So I'd like to take advantage of the situation and not predict what my next paintings will be."

Praise for the Modern Masters series:

"Each author has thoroughly done his or her homework, knows the historical, critical and personal contexts intimately, and writes extraordinarily well." —Artnews

Author Biography: Dr. Robert Hobbs, Rhoda Thalhimer Endowed Professor of American Art History at Virginia Commonwealth University, has taught art history at Florida State, Cornell, and Yale universities, and was director at the University of Iowa Museum of Art. His many publications include Milton Avery, Edward Hopper, and Abstract Expressionism: The Formative Years, and he has curated a number of important exhibitions

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly