Lee Krasner (45 page)

“I didn't know how to deal with Pollock,” she reflected. “It was a rough life.”
⁵³

This was the context in which she painted the canvas called
What Beast Must I Adore?,
calling from memory the old words from Rimbaud's
A Season in Hell
that she had had painted on her studio wall. Delmore Schwartz's translation of 1939, which must have been her source for these lines, reads “What beast must one adore?”
⁵⁴
Krasner probably misremembered the line when she recalled it to name her painting.
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Krasner told an interviewer in 1967, “So this painting was finished. I looked at it and suddenly
What Beast Must I Adore
came to me from something that meant a great deal to me many years back. And again, it was not there in a conscious sense, but it automatically suggested that to me…. The beast is peering at me.”
⁵⁶

In this case, the beast might have been David Gibbs. She had shipped him some of her paintings, and when they arrived, in pure Gibbs style, he sent her a telegram on March 23, 1961, telling her that he had received the paintings in good condition and that they looked great. He signed his telegram with the word “love.”
⁵⁷
Though it seems she had begun to see through his charm, she was astute to trust Gibbs to promote her work in Britain, because he was able to make headway in associating her with other important American artists in several group exhibitions.

Along with Pollock's work and artists such as Al Held, Paul Jenkins, Helen Frankenthaler, Shirley Jaffee, and Norman Bluhm, Krasner participated in another group show abroad in spring 1961. Called “Modern American Painting,” this one took place at the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England. Her 1956 paintings
Embrace
and
Birth
merited reproductions, and the latter was mentioned in the
Guardian
review of the show by W. E. Johnson: “Lee Krasner—Pollock's widow—also comes
close to figuration in her two canvases that are sensuous not only in their boldly flowing, all encompassing line, but also in the fleshy pink that she has chosen as her principal pigment.”
⁵⁸
David Gibbs & Co. loaned
Embrace
to the show, suggesting that he might have chosen it from Krasner to make an allusion to their own intimate relationship.

The first major monograph on Pollock, written by Bryan Robertson, then only thirty-five, appeared dedicated by the author to “Lee Krasner Pollock.” Harold Rosenberg, then fifty-four, attacked the younger critic in a review of the book in
Art News,
writing that Robertson “knows nothing about the United States” and “knows next to nothing about Pollock.”
⁵⁹
This scorn, however, was merely a preamble to the rest of Rosenberg's assault. Robertson had written that “during a conversation in 1949 with Harold Rosenberg, Pollock talked of the supremacy of
the act of painting
as in itself a source of magic. An observer with extreme intelligence, Rosenberg immediately coined the new phrase: action painting.”
⁶⁰
In response, Rosenberg argued, “The aim of this statement is, obviously, to present Pollock as the originator of Action Painting in theory and in practice, if not in name.” Rosenberg said the claim that Pollock originated action painting was false, but he did admit to a conversation he had had with Pollock in 1952, when Pollock “attacked a fellow artist for working with sketches, which in Pollock's opinion made that artist ‘Renaissance.'” Thus Rosenberg essentially acknowledged that he had been discussing Pollock in that particular veiled reference he had made in his article on action painting: “‘B. is not modern,' one of the leaders of this mode said to me the other day. ‘He works from sketches. That makes him Renaissance.'”
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Despite this admission, Rosenberg went on to say that he had told Pollock “that the article was not ‘about' him, even if he had played a part in it.” Pollock and Krasner had thought otherwise, and Krasner had felt the pain of betrayal by her old friend.

Shortly after Rosenberg's review of Robertson appeared, Kras
ner asked Richard Howard to write a reply for her to Harold Rosenberg. However, according to Bob Friedman, who recorded one such discussion in his journal, Richard protested that Krasner “would be at a disadvantage trying to match wits with Harold,” while Friedman's brother, Sandy, felt that Rosenberg's “historical inaccuracies” deserved a response.
⁶²
Bob Friedman noted that Krasner had supplied Robertson with the idea that Pollock was responsible for the phrase “action painting.”

What Friedman attributed to Rosenberg's wounded “pride of authorship” was actually, given the critic's tangled web of personal relations, much more complex.
⁶³
It is easy to see how his rivalry with Greenberg and his loyal support for Willem de Kooning comes out in his denigration of Pollock. He also seems to have wanted to weaken Pollock's reputation, putting him in direct opposition to Krasner, who had found support for Pollock's preeminence among the abstract expressionists with Robertson and others in the English art world. In fact while Rosenberg was promoting de Kooning, Robertson's monograph argued that Pollock was “second only to Picasso in the hierarchy of twentieth century art.”
⁶⁴

In May 1961, Krasner was preparing to travel to London for the opening at Marlborough Fine Art of a show of works by Pollock selected from her collection. It would be only her second trip overseas, and her first to England. She would also reunite with David Gibbs while there. At fifty-three, “the idiosyncrasies of her figure loom (surely the right word) problematically for any dressmaker,”
⁶⁵
remarked her friend the poet Richard Howard. To create a suitable wardrobe for the trip, Fritz Bultman suggested she consider using the designer Charles James, “once famous for his romantic ‘architectural' clothes.” James asked “how she wanted to confront the English art world—Do you want to charm them? To astonish them?” She replied that she wanted to “look invisible,” to which James retorted, “That, Mrs. Pollock, is one thing I cannot do for you.”
⁶⁶

In the end she commissioned three outfits, recalled by Howard as “a stiff white-silk evening gown, a green woolen suit, a brocade cocktail dress. The clothes emphasized all the apparent defects of Lee's body rather than attempting to conceal or compensate for them…. And lo! by some structural law unknown to ‘Mode,' these clothes were a marvel; they made Lee look not invisible but invulnerable, not at all in fashion but beyond, entirely attractive and secure; and like no one else.”
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Howard was amazed that Krasner submitted cheerfully to so many fittings, enduring delay and tolerating the entire process. He did not know that Krasner had adored drawing fashions when she was a child and that she had studied fashion design at Cooper Union. Nor did he realize that Igor Pantuhoff had once dressed Krasner like a model. Charles James had a lot of cachet in the art world, including patrons such as Dominique de Menil and Millicent Rogers (both of whom founded their own museums, the former in Houston and the latter in Taos, New Mexico).
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Krasner's decision was applauded by Fritz Bultman's wife, Jeanne, who had actually worked for James and admired his designs. For Krasner this was the opportunity of a lifetime. As the fashion photojournalist Bill Cunningham once pointed out, James “presented women with a shape that was not their own. You went in to Charles James deformed, and you came out a
Venus de Milo.
”
⁶⁹

Krasner enjoyed London, where she stayed at the Ritz and met such notables as the art historian Sir Kenneth Clark and Sir John Rothenstein, then the director of the Tate Gallery, who, according to Richard Howard, “made much of her company.”
⁷⁰
Professionally the London connection would continue to be productive for her.

Krasner's relationship with Gibbs continued to thrive enough that they traveled that June on a whirlwind trip to Paris, Zurich, Bern, Turin, and Milan, the better to create an international market for Pollock's work. Gibbs made the arrangements, billed her, and she picked up the tab. Five nights were devoted to Paris, cre
ating a better memory than her first trip there, which had ended with the news of Pollock's death. They spent the tenth of June at the Excelsior Hotel Gallia in Milan, where “Sig. David Gibbs” was accompanied by “Mrs. Pollock,” added by hand to the printed bill.
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Gibbs billed Krasner three thousand dollars for his consultant's fees from May 1, 1961, to October 31, 1961, but he also billed her that December for an “Agreed bonus” of five thousand dollars for the same period.

The following autumn, Marlborough Fine Art Limited in London staged “The New New York Scene,” an exhibition of abstract American art that included, among others, Krasner, Ellsworth Kelly, Raymond Parker, Helen Frankenthaler, and Lee Bontecou. Representing Krasner were
Cool White
(1959, 72 by 114 inches) and
Triple Goddess
(1960, 86 by 58 inches).
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The future novelist, then art historian at the University of Reading, Anita Brookner, reviewed the show for
Burlington Magazine
. Clearly not well informed as a critic of contemporary art, she wrote that she wanted to append a subtitle to the show: “Painting to be viewed through dark glasses” and commented “Lee Krasner paints rather more spontaneously [than the minimalist art of Kelly or Parker]: the man [
sic
] is clearly a romantic.”
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Brookner's failure to discern or to research Krasner's gender is a testament to her objectivity as a critic, who reported only how she responded to what she saw. Krasner might have been pleased to be mistaken for a male artist, at a time when men still monopolized power and prestige. It was important to Krasner that her work be appreciated on its own terms, without regard to her history and role as Pollock's spouse. This mistake was more likely to happen abroad, because she was virtually unknown outside of the circle of New York artists with whom she had long been affiliated.

Pollock's art was growing in attention and in price. These factors, along with a lingering antipathy toward Krasner, may have provoked Peggy Guggenheim to sue Pollock's estate in federal court, charging that Pollock had defrauded her when he was
under contract to give her all of his works (except for one each year) in exchange for an allowance of $300 a month for two years, starting on March 15, 1946. Guggenheim had become aware that in 1960 the American Friends of the Tate Gallery in London had paid $100,000 for a painting by Pollock, and she wanted $122,000 from Krasner.
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Guggenheim charged that Krasner had been fraudulently holding on to some of Pollock's paintings that belonged to her. Since there was as yet no catalogue raisonné, the exact number of works Pollock had produced in that particular two-year period was then unknown and not easy to ascertain. The case did not close until 1965.

Krasner didn't want to spend the summer alone again, and she looked for someone to live at the Springs house. Her nephew had been teaching at Rutgers in New Jersey, where Robert Miller and Betsy Wittenborn had just graduated. When Krasner met them at the opening of a show, she invited Bob to work as her studio assistant. He subsequently worked for her in East Hampton, taking the place of Richard Howard and Sandy Friedman, who stayed friends but wanted to move on. By the time Bob and Betsy got married in 1964, Krasner had discovered that she and Betsy both were born on October 27, which helped to forge a bond.
⁷⁵

That summer
Newsday
ran a feature on Krasner—“Pollock's Widow Paints in His Old Studio.” Calling her “a serious and talented abstract expressionist in her own right,” Lois Tenke reported that the artist told her, “All my time now is devoted to my work and handling my husband's exhibits. I don't have time for anything else.”
⁷⁶
At the time, Krasner claimed to have “just one small painting of his in my bedroom.” When Tenke asked Krasner about the material success of her own work or lack of it, she responded, “I know that a lot of my fellow artists have realized far more success than I have, but it doesn't bother me. The fact that my work isn't financially successful has less effect on me now than it did in the past, because of my own assurance in what
I am doing.”
⁷⁷
Krasner was now confident that she would never be financially needy again, as she had been with both Pantuhoff and Pollock. Pollock's rising fame and her large collection of his work guaranteed her security. She no longer had to answer to anyone. In fact, Pollock's prices had so escalated that Krasner became afraid to have even his one small painting on view in her bedroom, lest it be stolen.

By February 12, 1962, Krasner had grown displeased with her arrangement with Gibbs and had Dickler, her attorney, write to him explaining her concerns about “the triangular relationship” between him, Krasner, and the Marlborough Gallery.
⁷⁸
Dickler summed up why she had gone with him: she wanted to move Pollock's work to Europe from New York to escape the burden of duties involved. With the planned opening of Marlborough in New York, Krasner saw that Gibbs would have to serve their interest in his new role as its New York representative. She also feared upsetting the New York art market by helping to set up a British competitor on their turf.

From March 6 to 30, 1962, Howard Wise Gallery gave Krasner another solo show, which was generally well received. Also, her prices went up.
The Seasons
at $8,500;
Fragments from a Crucifixion
at $6,000; and
White Rage
at $5,000. Her work once again attracted Irving Sandler, who reviewed the show for
Art News
. Sandler thought she had produced two groups of action paintings. He viewed one group as “composed of impulsive, curvilinear sweeps on bare canvas” similar to those of her previous show a year earlier. He thought that paintings in “the other series relate to a denser and more complex canvas,
The Gate,
which was in her last show. They consist of splashed and spattered whites and off-whites varied with staccato dark brown stabs which open up light brown backgrounds. In an explosive
White Rage,
Miss Krasner attempts a fusion of the two ways of working. This picture, the most impressive in the show, avoids the tendency to thinness in the linear works and to decoration in the more painterly ones.”
Sandler found her work more abstract and noted “the works are as abandoned and expansive as before, but Miss Krasner now celebrates the act of painting—a new delight in the manipulation of space—rather than a mythological content.”
⁷⁹
While the critic for the
New York Times
praised her “rhythms” and “subjugation of color,” Vivien Raynor, reviewing for
Arts Magazine,
concurred about the “strong rhythm,” but warned “the paintings occasionally veer close to textile design.”
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