Krasner, of course, is a more conventionally recognized figure, if often in relation to Pollock, her husband. However, she was established as an artist prior to their marriage, and in fact introduced him to a number of art world habitués, including de Kooning and critic and Ab Ex advocate Clement Greenberg. Who knows what course his career would have taken had she not done so? But her dense, agitated paintings such as Composition (1949)—bursting with small, ordered pictographs that fairly demand, yet ultimately resist reading— and her intricately layered dripped works (such as Untitled, 1948), can be seen in a fresh light in this show, detached from Pollock's magnificent, demanding canvases.
Norman Lewis, on the other hand, was unknown to me, a fact which confounded me while moving through the galleries. (If I had caught the Pollock/de Kooning show, I would've been enlightened six years sooner.) Was his relative lack of fame because he didn't hang with the downtown gang, as Pollock did? Or perhaps it was the delicacy of his lines, even though they vibrate with energy? No doubt being African-American contributed to his lack of recognition although his circle included familiar artists such as Romare Bearden and Jacob Lawrence. One work inspired by social causes is included in this show, but his outstanding works are abstract, which perhaps marginalized him as he was more difficult to pigeonhole. In any case, his work is a wonderful, belated personal discovery.
Lee Krasner, Untitled (1948). Oil on pressed wood, 18 x 38". The Jewish Museum, New York
Promised gift of Craig and Caryn Effron
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Krasner tended to fit shapes just into the frame, or extended them past the edge, indicating an endless vista, a broad and busy universe. Several works show her experimentation with composition and technique—large organic shapes, or rectangulars spaced rhythmically, like paintings in a museum, or windows in building. The dense layering and scumbled pigment on her canvases tell of an inner life bursting at the seams, waiting to emerge.
The Jewish Museum should be congratulated for bringing to light the work of these two artists essential to modern art. And who knows what other marginalized artists are waiting to be rediscovered?
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