Lee Krasner

April 21 – June 11, 2016

Opening reception Thursday, April 21, 6–8 PM

Robert Miller Gallery is pleased to announce Lee Krasner, a survey exhibition spanning the artist's five decade long career. A fully illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition and includes a homage by Patti Smith. Smith writes,
 
“In 1967 I came to New York City, at twenty years old, with the knowledge of her reputation in tow. I sensed her strength of purpose and aspired to be like her one day. I also hoped, as she, to meet a fellow artist and work with him side by side. It would take, as attested by her choices, much personal strength to commit to the dual sacrifices required by art and love, yet it was my greatest wish.
 
Lee Krasner was steadfast in her engagement with these two seemingly conflicting vows. With fierce dedication she progressed rapidly, possessing a hand for modeling the figure, a mind for denouncing it, a grasp of cubist space, feeling out Mondrian, Klee, Hoffman, Pollock, Matisse, on the way to becoming herself. Her steely determination projects from an early self-portrait and the work thereafter provides us with the markers toward her eventual full-bloomed entry into a male dominated world, forever establishing herself on equal ground, where aspects of gender may enrich a work, but not determine its place within the circle of Art.” 
 
The exhibition focuses on Krasner's recurring themes and obsessions; her belief that she was “never free of the past…” and that “…the past is part of the present, which becomes part of the future.” In viewing the work chronologically, her claim that, “All my work seems to swing back to something I was involved with earlier…” becomes increasingly clear and significant in understanding Lee Krasner’s art.
 
Born in 1908 in Brooklyn, American Abstract Expressionist artist Lee Krasner attended the Art Students League, and enrolled at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Art and Science in Manhattan at the age of 18. She then transferred to the National Academy of Design. She entered into the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts where her career began to flourish. In 1945, Krasner married fellow painter Jackson Pollock. The union had a profound and mutual influence on their respective careers. Krasner, constantly at arms with the male dominated art world, did not gain recognition as a preeminent first generation Abstract Expressionist until late in her life. She died in 1984 and left behind an ever growing legacy and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation.