The Metropolitan Museum of Art opens “Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous” Oct. 4, bringing together 120 paintings from more than 80 national and international lenders. Lee Krasner’s works sit alongside Jackson Pollock’s, giving visitors a rare chance to reconsider the artists’ work together.
The Artists in Conversation
The exhibition pairs their paintings. Rather than presenting Krasner and Pollock separately, the Met says the display invites visitors to reconsider each artist’s work in relation to the other. More than 80 lenders supplied works, though the account doesn’t name them or say how many paintings each contributed.
The title names both artists. Its central arrangement is clear: Krasner’s work appears alongside Pollock’s. The account doesn’t list the paintings, give their dates or describe the rooms where they’ll hang. It does state the exhibition’s scale: 120 paintings, borrowed from more than 80 national and international lenders.
Krasner on Recognition
Art critic, author and documentary filmmaker Amei Wallach recalled meeting Krasner in 1973. Wallach wrote that Krasner sat barefoot, shirt untucked, in the house she had shared with Pollock for some 11 years in the Springs section of East Hampton. Wallach described her as direct and forceful.
“I happen to be Mrs. Jackson Pollock, and that’s a mouthful,” Krasner told Wallach. She also called herself “a woman, Jewish, a widow, a damn good painter, thank you, and a little too independent.” Her words put her own account of her identity and work beside the exhibition’s pairing of her paintings with Pollock’s.
Krasner was 65 and about to have her first solo exhibition in a major American museum. The Whitney Museum of American Art mounted “Lee Krasner: Large Paintings,” a show of 18 works spanning two decades beginning in 1953. The Whitney show and the Met exhibition are distinct. The account identifies the former as Krasner’s first solo exhibition in a major American museum.
A First Solo Exhibition
“The alternative is that it could all have happened after I die,” Krasner said of the Whitney exhibition. “But to feel Big Boom Joy — oh, cut it out.” Looking at the paintings on display, she said, “When those paintings are up there, everybody can look and judge for themselves.”
Wallach, who met Krasner in 1973, wrote that “Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous” gives visitors a chance to reconsider the artists’ work together. The Met’s exhibition opens Oct. 4. It brings together 120 paintings from more than 80 lenders, with Krasner’s work shown alongside Pollock’s.