Lee Krasner is finally stepping out of her husband Jackson Pollock's shadow in a landmark dual exhibition at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, which presents each artist on their own terms while acknowledging the gender politics that long kept Krasner from equal recognition.
Curators David Breslin and Brinda Kumar spent three years working on the show, which explores the arc of both artists' careers. They highlight how Krasner, in addition to managing her own career and being a devoted partner to the often unpredictable Pollock, acted as an unofficial publicist for her husband's work.
Krasner's role as Pollock's champion
"She was a great champion of Pollock's work, but also so aware of the gender politics of the time," says Breslin. "She was such a realist, she knew if there was one person in the couple who would sell, it was him. She wanted to pay the bills." Kumar adds: "She did it all, right down to folding the programs in the gallery. When Pollock was taking off, Krasner's career was static."
Gender politics is one reason Krasner remains in Pollock's shadow despite accolades, including being one of the few female artists granted a solo retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, with her works now fetching up to $10m at auction.
A tale of two careers
The exhibition features loans from over 80 institutions worldwide and spans over 120 paintings, including works by Modigliani, Matisse, Picasso and de Kooning. While Pollock's rise was meteoric, Krasner created steadily for two decades after his death in a driving accident in 1956.
"We don't try to make balances where they aren't there," says Breslin. "We let it show that the disparity was real." Kumar adds: "We found it productive to think in terms of the creative adjacency that informs their practice, a looking back and forth."
Creative adjacency and mutual influence
Pollock and Krasner met at a pivotal New York exhibition curated by John Graham at McMillen Inc. At the time, Krasner was better connected, while Pollock was a recluse. "Krasner knew everybody at the time, Pollock wasn't such a mixer," says Kumar. "The one person she didn't know at that show was Pollock."
After moving to Long Island in 1945, they created alongside each other, supporting one another's development despite coming from vastly different traditions. Krasner introduced Pollock to Matisse's work, particularly the 1951 MoMA retrospective, which influenced both artists. "Krasner and Matisse give Pollock permission to use color in a different way," says Breslin.
Undoing the 'compare and contrast'
The Met's show extends beyond their time together, telling the story of each career and avoiding a simple comparison. "There's so much focus on 'who did what first?', 'who did the drip first?'" says Breslin. "We wanted to undo this. These ideas were in the air, they worked in a circle of other artists."
The exhibition's name, Past Continuous, comes from a series of paintings Krasner made late in her career, each titled for a verb tense. "To have that past continue into the present and into the future is something that we wanted to have in the exhibition," says Breslin. Kumar quotes Krasner: "I believe in continuity. The past is part of the present, which becomes part of the future."
Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, until 31 January 2027.
