Abstract painter and collage artist Lee Krasner was born in 1908 and had the misfortune of graduating in the midst of the Great Depression of 1930.
She had to take whatever job she could find, including modeling and waitressing to support herself. But she didn’t give up her dream of making it as a full-time artist.
By the 1940s, she was an established painter in her own right. In 1942 in an exhibition in New York, she was deeply impressed by a junior artist who also had a display alongside her.
She later visited Jackson Pollock at his studio and was so much in awe with his art that she remained devoted to Pollock for the rest of her life.
Thus started one of the fascinating love story of modern world.
She married Pollock in 1945, left her own passion for painting to set the explosive life and works of Jackson in order.
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On the other end, Jackson Pollock’s alcohol drenched short career is a path breaking beacon in American painting world. He was the creator of the famous drip method of painting.
In 1949 at the age of 35, he suddenly became the best-paid painter of America. In a four-page spread, on August 8, 1949, the Life magazine quoted him as the greatest living painter in the United States. Even Documentary photographers rushed to film “Pollock working”.
But fame was not good for Pollock. He simply couldn’t paint under limelight. Neither could he take the criticism that accompanied this fame. He hit the bottle.
Next year In 1950, Pollock didn’t sell. Depressed and haunted, he would frequently meet his friends at the nearby Cedar Bar, drinking until it closed and getting into violent fights.
Yet Pollock completed the masterpiece of his life time, The Deep, during this turbulent period.
Overwhelmed with Pollock’s needs, Krasner was also unable to work. Their marriage became troubled, and Pollock’s health was failing.
In 1956, Krasner reluctantly left for Paris to give Pollock space. Sadly Pollock who had a mad turbulent relationship with Krasner couldn’t tolerate her absence either.
And in two months, Just after 10 p.m. on August 11, 1956, Pollock, who had been drinking, crashed his car. He was thrown 50 feet into the air and died immediately. Thus ended the life and work of the greatest painter of the modern America.
Krasner returned from France to bury Pollock, and went into a mourning that would last the rest of her life.
Struggling with her grief, she channeled her sadness and rage into her most famous creation the ‘Earth Green and Night Journey’ series.
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Krasner lived and painted for another 20 years.
She also managed the sale of Pollock’s paintings carefully and set up the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, which was worth $20 million and gives grants to young, promising artists.
Dr Ramakanta's Ideas 