How did handling of Jackson pollack estate by lee krasner affect American modern painting?

Answer 1

Being a Russian Jew, an emigrant family in New York, USA, Lee Krasner had many obstacles, almost all her life.

Once she said in an interview with Newsday journalist Amei Wallach 1973:

"I happen to be Mrs. Jackson Pollock, and that's a mouthful. The only thing I haven't had against me was being black. I was a woman, Jewish, a widow, a damn good painter, thank you, and a little too independent."

She was quite aware of herself as a painter and from her teenage time she pursued this all her life. But meeting Jackson Pollock in 1945 and marrying him, left her almost in the constant shadow of Jackson Pollock, who had a more easygoing lifestyle, one can say.

In 1932, she obtained full time work as an artist through the Federeal Art Project.

The FAP, more or likely the visual arts branch of the WPA program.

Lee Krasner did not mind this work but was quite happy about it. Jackson Pollock on his part was not an exception in this way. He also did his time with WPA.

Now, Jackson Pollock did it his way and even after marrying Lee Krasner, probably the only moment in his life he was loving kind, he pursued his own painting style and they were each other competitors as well as each others inspiration.

When Jackson Pollock reach his goal or inner spirit and found his style, Lee Krasner still had to face many problems she had been fighting all her life.

So, being left as a wife, as a lover for a much more sophisticated women, a pretty one and being left in the shadow of her now past away husband being only 47 years old, she had to wait yet five more years struckle and sickness before she was accepted as the great artist she had become.

So one can imagine, she t0ok the obligation as curator of her husband's estate very seriously and also, with some anger towards Ruth Kligmann, whom she never wanted to deal with, even when Ruth Kligmann wanted to have a painting, a lover's gift from Jackson Pollock, accepted as part of Jackson Pollock works.

(she wanted to sell it since she was broke, more or the less).

But she never got this certified by Lee Krasner. Even after both death and Ruth Kligmann estate to day, last week, the painting was taken from an auction for "further investigation".

At her death (Lee Krasner) in 1984, a travelling retrospective of her work was headed for Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art. Lee Krasner died in 1984, age 75, from natural causes.

After her death, her (and Jackson Pollock) estate on East Hamptonbecame The Pollock-Krasner House and Studio and a separate organization Pollock-Krasner Foundation was established in 1985, just a year after her death.

One can say, this became an institution for both their life and works and the identification and catalogue of his and her works of art, likewise became an institution as well.

To day this institution is functioning as a foundation to support artists who are new and pursuing new paths for their arts.

So, you can say, that after Lee Krasner`s death the generosity of the Pollosk-Krasner foundation has since 1985 awarded more than 46 million dollars in grants to working artists, not only in the US, but around the world as well.

As far as Jackson Pollock paintings are concerned, the high prices he now obtain, the search for forgotten or "not known" paintings of Jackson Pollock somehow is interesting, but as far as the Pollock-Krasner Foundation the chances for finding an unknown painting is limited (and to other experts, not necessary impossible).