Lee Krasner: Difference between revisions

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==Early life==

Krasner was born as ''' Lena Krassner''' (outside the family she was known as '''Lenore Krasner''') on October 27, 1908, in [[Brooklyn, New York]].<ref>Brenson, Michael. [https://www.nytimes.com/1984/06/21/obituaries/lee-krasner-pollock-is-dead-painter-of-new-york-school.html "Lee Krasner Pollock is Dead - Painter of New York School"], ''The New York Times,'' Retrieved November 8, 2014.</ref> She was the daughter of Chane (née Weiss) and Joseph Krasner,<ref>[http://www.worldcat.org/wcpa/servlet/org.oclc.lac.ui.DialABookServlet?oclcnum=732353327 Lee Krasner biography excerpt] Retrieved March 1, 2016</ref> [[Russian-Jewish]] immigrants from Spykov

(now [[Shpykiv]], a Jewish community in what is now [[Ukraine]]). Krasner's parents were Russian-Jewish immigrants who fled to the United States to escape [[anti-Semitism|antisemitism]] and the [[Russo-Japanese War]],<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=httphttps://www.biography.com/peopleartists/lee-krasner-37447#early-years|title=Lee Krasner Biography|access-date=March 18, 2016}}</ref> and Chane changed her name to Anna once she arrived.<ref>Anne M. Wagner. Three Artists (three Women): Modernism and the Art of Hesse, Krasner, and O'Keeffe. (Berkeley: University of California, 1996.) pg. 107</ref> Lee was the youngest of six children, and the only one to be born in the United States.<ref name="Rose, Barbara 1983. pg. 13">Rose, Barbara. ''Lee Krasner: A Retrospective''. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1983. pg. 13.</ref>

==Education==

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By attending a technical art school, Krasner was able to gain an extensive and thorough artistic education as illustrated through her knowledge of the techniques of the [[Old Masters]].<ref name="Rose, Barbara 1983. pg. 15">Rose. 1983. pg. 15</ref> She also became highly skilled in portraying anatomically correct figures.<ref name="Rose, Barbara 1983. pg. 16">Rose. 1983. pg. 16</ref> There are relatively few works that survive from this time period apart from a few self-portraits and [[still life]]s because most of the works were burned in a fire. One image that still exists from this period is her "Self Portrait" painted in 1930, now at the [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]]. She submitted it to the National Academy in order to enroll in a certain class, but the judges could not believe that the young artist produced a self-portrait [[en plein air]].<ref name="Rose, Barbara 1983. pg. 15"/> In it, Krasner depicts herself with a defiant expression surrounded by nature. She also briefly enrolled in the [[Art Students League of New York]] in 1928.<ref name="Strassfield, Christina Mossaides 1995. pg. 6">Strassfield, Christina Mossaides. "Lee Krasner: The Nature of the Body-- Works from 1933 to 1984". East Hampton: Guild Hall Museum, 1995. pg. 6</ref> There, she took a class led by [[George Bridgman]] who emphasized the human form.<ref name="Strassfield, Christina Mossaides 1995. pg. 6"/><ref name="Rose, Barbara 1983. pg. 18">Rose, 1983. pg. 18</ref>

Krasner was highly influenced by the opening of the [[Museum of Modern Art]] in 1929. She was very affected by [[Post-Impressionism]] and grew critical of the academic notions of style she had learned at the National Academy. In the 1930s, she began studying [[modern art]] through learning the components of [[Composition (visual arts)|composition]], technique, and theory.<ref name="Rose, Barbara 1983. pg. 16"/> She began taking classes from [[Hans Hofmann]] in 1937, which modernized her approach to the nude and still life.<ref name="Rose, Barbara 1983. pg. 18"/> He emphasized the two-dimensional nature of the [[picture plane]] and usage of color to create spatial illusion that was not representative of reality through his lessons.<ref>Rose. 1983, pg. 22</ref> Throughout her classes with Hofmann, Krasner worked in an advanced style of [[cubism]], also known as neo-cubism. During the class, a human nude or a still life setting would be the model from which Krasner and other students would have to work. She typically created charcoal drawings of the human models and oil on paper color studies of the still life settings.<ref name="Rose, Barbara 1983. pg. 26">Rose, 1983. pg. 26</ref> She typically illustrated female nudes in a cubist manner with tension achieved through the fragmentation of forms and the opposition of light and dark colors. The still lifes illustrated her interest in [[fauvism]] since she suspended brightly colored pigment on white backgrounds.<ref name="Hobbs, Robert 1993. pg. 24">Hobbs, Robert. ''Lee Krasner''. New York: Abbeville Press, 1993. pg. 24</ref>

Hans Hofmann "was very negative" his former student said "but one day he stood before my easel and he gave me the first praise I had ever received as an artist from him. He said, 'This is so good, you would never know it was done by a woman". She also received praise from [[Piet Mondrian]] who once told her "You have a very strong inner rhythm; you must never lose it."{{citation needed|date=April 2022}}

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[[Category:1908 births]]

[[Category:1984 deaths]]

[[Category:Painters20th-century fromAmerican BrooklynJews]]

[[Category:American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent]]

[[Category:20th-century American painters]]

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