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Lee Krasner interview, 1966 July 31

This transcript is in the public domain and may be used without permission. Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Lee Krasner interview, 1966 July 31, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Interview with Lee Krasner
Conducted by Barbara Rose
In New York
July 31, 1966

Preface

The following oral history transcript is the result of a tape-recorded interview with Lee Krasner on July 31, 1966. The interview was conducted in New York by Barbara Rose for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Interview

BARBARA ROSE: I want to ask you about some of your experiences mainly in the 30s since you were involved with three of the most important activities that American artists were involved in at that point: the WPA Project, the American Abstract Artists, and also the Hofmann School. So you are in a kind of privileged position to have memories about that period. I haven’t talked to you about this though really, you know, this is just to begin with. What did you do on the Project, on the WPA?

LEE KRASNER: On the Project?

BARBARA ROSE: Yes.

LEE KRASNER: Assistant in mural – that is, I was assistant to many artists up to a point. Then I was given several murals to execute that were done by other artists, to supervise execution.

BARBARA ROSE: In other words, you mean an artist would be responsible for the cartoon and then other people would execute it?

LEE KRASNER: No, no. The procedure was that an artist got a mural and then he would have anywhere from two to ten assistants depending on the size of the mural and how many assistants he needed, or she needed. As the Project lasted a long time some of the artists whose sketchbooks had been approved, but the murals hadn’t been executed, and for some reason or another they left the Project, the research had been done, everything had been dome but the mural, the actual final execution of it. And some of these I was asked to execute, take over. One was the History of Navigation. That was 108 feet long or some such thing. It went into some high school. You know, there must be a record of it some place. And I think I was assigned seven or eight assistants to execute somebody else’s mural. I said I would do it – I got several of these dirty jobs to do – on the condition that they would give me an abstract mural of my own. To which they consented though there was very little request for abstract murals. You know there were mainly one or two places where they could be placed. This was some radio station I believe.

BARBARA ROSE: Why were there so few places where abstract murals could be used?

LEE KRASNER: Well, for one thing the place it all was allocated for, whoever was in charge could designate the type of mural they wanted. And unfortunately the public taste did not request abstract murals.

BARBARA ROSE: So where were the places that finally, say, an abstract work could be accommodated? I mean I know about Stuart Davis’s for WNYC.

LEE KRASNER: Well, that was it. WNYC was the only one I know of that had places for several abstract murals. And one of the conditions I made in order to execute several of these large jobs was that I would then be given my own job to do. I submitted a sketch. In deed they did keep their word. It was accepted and they gave me my own abstract mural. I finished, I don’t know, one or two of these jobs. And pronto that was the end of the – we became a war service project. So I never got to it.

BARBARA ROSE: Was it ever decided where it would go?

LEE KRASNER: In WNYC – the same place. That was the only one to my knowledge that was taking them. There may have been one or two others.

BARBARA ROSE: But Gorky’s airport mural -

LEE KRASNER: Well, I know. But that I think only too Gorky’s airport mural. I mean that was the one job there. Whereas this station had several rooms, several spots so that it incorporated more than one. Or there were to be more than one there.

BARBARA ROSE: Were there more abstract artists working on the easel painting project than on the mural project?

LEE KRASNER: I don’t think I’d be in a position to know that as this point.

BARBARA ROSE: Well, were there many abstract artists whom you knew so who were working on the mural project?

LEE KRASNER: Many? No, not many. But quite a few. You mentioned Gorky. You mentioned Stuart Davis. De Kooning was for a while. Now I have to go back so far it becomes a little difficult. But I knew there were a few, you know, abstract artists on the job. And some of the people who were not abstract then are now abstract. So it’s very hard for me to stop and sort that out.

BARBARA ROSE: I’m just curious because I’ve heard two versions of the WPA experience. One said the abstract artists weren’t discriminated against. And another said, yes, they were discriminated against. And I wonder from your experience which you thought was true.

LEE KRASNER: I didn’t find any sense of discrimination. But as the place that requested – these could only go up in certain public places – and those in charge of the particular building requested what they wanted.

BARBARA ROSE: In other words, the subject was given to you in the sense that the Renaissance princes decided on the program.

LEE KRASNER: Precisely. Exactly. “We want a history of navigation.” Now you couldn’t get them to take an abstract mural. That was it. And by and large this was the type of thing that was requested in mural painting. The history of something or another rather than an abstract mural.

BARBARA ROSE: Do you think that any positive factors were involved in the WPA? I mean in terms of the development of American art?

LEE KRASNER: Well, I do think the most vital and most positive, and you can’t ignore it, was the fact that it allowed a great many of the artists to continue living and in hope that they could get to whatever kind of painting they did. It was a very crucial time. And you couldn’t get this job unless you absolutely qualified on the basis of need. Well, it just carried artists through this period, you know. Even if they weren’t doing what they wanted to do it carried them through. It kept them alive, so to speak, for a period of time.

BARBARA ROSE: Was there a sort of an espirit de corps that developed through this WPA experience? Did you get to know other artists?

LEE KRASNER: Oh, yes, this was inevitable. It became a meeting place for artists, you know.

BARBARA ROSE: What? The classes?

LEE KRASNER: No, not the classes. But you had to check in regularly, let’s say, or you had to go in to collect your pay if nothing else. Which meant that you met a whole group, a good body of artists. And you’d wander off to get some beer and talk and whatnot.

BARBARA ROSE: Where would you go, for example, to talk or to have a beer?

LEE KRASNER: I don’t know. The Jumble Shop would be one place where we’d sometimes accumulate down in the Village. I think it might be just a place that’s unknown that was right around the corner from wherever it was that we met.

BARBARA ROSE: And what kind of things would you discuss? What would be the topics for discussion?

LEE KRASNER: It would be varied. At one point we might be bellyaching about some imposition the WPA forced upon us. Another time it might be completely aesthetic discussion; you know, whether we had just seen a new Picasso reproduction or something and it would take off about that. It wasn’t organized in any way. And it wouldn’t have had form in that sense.

BARBARA ROSE: No, I’m just curious as to the kind of aesthetic problems that preoccupied people at that time? Picasso apparently was very important.

LEE KRASNER: Oh, yes. Let’s say that. And as it embraces a period of years it would have had – certainly I don’t mean Picasso specifically – although I do mean him specifically – but if could have been Matisse. It could have been any French show that had just been seen. Or reproductions. Or an article that somebody had written that you agreed or disagreed or tangled with somehow or other. But it was around French painting.

BARBARA ROSE: In other words, it was the School of Paris painting that most of these discussions were about?

LEE KRASNER: Oh, absolutely. Oh, yes. Back there, yes.

BARBARA ROSE: Well, you said “a Picasso reproduction” rather than a Picasso painting. Was it more the reproductions than actual art works that you saw at that time?

LEE KRASNER: No, there seemed to be several galleries that would bring in new shows. One really looked forward to this.

BARBARA ROSE: Which galleries, for example?

LEE KRASNER: Well, Valentine Dudensing first showed the Guernica. I believe that’s where it was seen first here.

BARBARA ROSE: And when it was seen was there a kind of big flare up in the art world?

LEE KRASNER: I’m afraid it knocked a lot of people flat. I can only give you my response in that sense. It knocked me right out of the room, circled the block four or five times, and then went back and took another look at it. I’m sure I was not alone in that kind of reaction.

BARBARA ROSE: Was there a lot of imitation of Picasso? I mean what was the kind of thing that one aspired to? What kind of painting, for example, did one aspire to? Did the younger painters want to paint like these School of Paris painters whom they admired?

LEE KRASNER: Well, now, that’s a little – you know it’s very hard to answer a question like that. It wasn’t a matter of wanting to paint like that. But in the presence of a great work of art it does many things to you in one second. It wasn’t that you consciously said, “I want to do that.” You’re overwhelmed in many directions when you’re congenially confronted with, let’s say, a painting like the Guernica for the first time. It disturbs so many elements in one given second you can’t say “I want to paint like that.” It isn’t that simple.

BARBARA ROSE: Yes, but I mean what was the opinion, say, of American art vis-à-vis French art?

LEE KRASNER: At this particular time there wasn’t very much American art. You know what American art existed at that point.

BARBARA ROSE: Well, there was a lot of it. It’s just whether one thought it was on a par with French art.

LEE KRASNER: That’s right.

BARBARA ROSE: Or whether there was a kind of an embarrassment about it.

LEE KRASNER: Well, let’s say we acknowledged the School of French Painting – the Paris School of painting as the leading force and vitality of the time. I think that was understood and felt and experienced.

BARBARA ROSE: Well, which American artist at the time had any kind of stature? I mean were certain people prominent, for example? There wasn’t anything like an art world I suppose?

LEE KRASNER: No, not in the sense as we know it today, certainly not. But certainly there was some kind of an art world.

BARBARA ROSE: Well, I’m talking about the avant-garde painters

LEE KRASNER: So am I talking about them. So we knew like….

BARBARA ROSE: There was a kind of nucleus.

LEE KRASNER: Yes, a little handful of us.

BARBARA ROSE: Whom do you remember?

LEE KRASNER: I remember Gorky was there, but you know here feeling was more about Picasso than I did. Stuart Davis a little bit: I remember Stuart Davis. John Graham would have been part of that. De Kooning.

BARBARA ROSE: But no one, in other words, would have thought of taking American art as a model? I mean there were no American artists that were of that stature?

LEE KRASNER: Of Picasso’s stature? No.

BARBARA ROSE: And that was acknowledged among the painters?

LEE KRASNER: Nobody pitted themselves against that one.

BARBARA ROSE: What was the opinion of, say, Marin, and Hartley, and Dove and the other avant-garde painters?

LEE KRASNER: Unfortunately, I wouldn’t have known that opinion directly as I would through Stuart Davis, through Gorky, through de Kooning, through Graham.

BARBARA ROSE: Well, I mean for your generation they just didn’t really matter?

LEE KRASNER: Oh, they did. It was acknowledged. But not when you put it against a man like Picasso at this particular point in history. The force, the moving force would have been coming from Paris.

BARBARA ROSE: In the late 30s was there a feeling that American art could ever achieve this status that French art had? Or could ever become the aesthetic equal of French art?

LEE KRASNER: I would say it was not felt. Not in the sense of the place the French painting had at that time.

BARBARA ROSE: No one at that point thought that American art would rival French painting?

LEE KRASNER: Absolutely not at all! I didn’t feel any awareness of this kind of feeling any place. Not at this time.

BARBARA ROSE: What would you say was the major source of ideas in the late 30s? What would an exciting event be in terms of an exhibition or an article? What kinds of things would you see or read that might affect your work?

LEE KRASNER: I’m not quite clear on the question.

BARBARA ROSE: Well, in the sense that you say the Guernica when it was first exhibited made a kind of tremendous difference. I’m trying to get at what the basic issues that were being discussed were.

LEE KRASNER: I don’t think I can answer that one. I would say the most immediate contact and the most vital force that came through was seeing the paintings that came over.

BARBARA ROSE: And you might see them where? At the Gallery of Living Art? Did people go there often?

LEE KRASNER: Well, yes. The Pierre Matisse Gallery would show paintings. Valentine Dudensing. I can’t think of the names of the galleries any more. But one knew exactly which galleries to move around where you’d see the kind of work that you wanted to see when it came over. And this we’d look forward to with enormous anticipation. There was nothing casual about a show coming over. It wasn’t a matter to “Did you see it?” One went with a great sense of hunger going towards this.

BARBARA ROSE: Yes. And it was Matisse and Picasso who were considered the giants?

LEE KRASNER: There were others. You know, one didn’t miss a Leger show. One didn’t miss whatever came over from that School. But the giants were unquestionably Matisse and Picasso.

BARBARA ROSE: This handful of people who were interested in abstract art – was there a kind of communal sense that this was possibly the nucleus for an American avant-garde?

LEE KRASNER: Was there a sense of this?

BARBARA ROSE: Yes. Was there a kind of sense of identification as an avant-garde? Did you think of yourselves as being potentially…?

LEE KRASNER: Oh, I think we were aware. By the time one is a member of the American Abstract Artists, let’s say, there’s no question that we have the feeling we are the avant-garde. In retrospect it was a far cry from avant-garde but at the time one felt – well, anybody that has anything to say that means anything is a member of this group.

BARBARA ROSE: I see. And so the American Abstract Artists really becomes the nucleus from which the very avant-garde can emerge? I mean it gives you a kind of sense of identity?

LEE KRASNER: Well, it did not include people like Gorky. It did not include de Kooning. It did not include Pollock. It runs true to form. We thought we were the avant-garde except certain names were not there.

BARBARA ROSE: Why didn’t they join? That’s interesting. Why didn’t Gorky….?

LEE KRASNER: This one would have to ask, you know, or try to dig up the individual, separate reasons for it, you see. And I can remember having some hair-splitting fights within my avant-garde group because I thought we were getting a little provincial and wanted to expand its dimension.

BARBARA ROSE: Provincial in what sense?

LEE KRASNER: Provincial in being a closed shop, as any group tends to become no matter what it is called. There was a kind of feeling for a hard-edge painting. I don’t mean as the term hard-edge is used today.

BARBARA ROSE: Geometric abstraction?

LEE KRASNER: Precisely. So that a drip of Pollock’s would be out of the question. Gorky wouldn’t join; he just didn’t join, you know.

BARBARA ROSE: How about a painter like Arthur Carles? Was he in any sense known or were people interested in his work?

LEE KRASNER: Well, a few people I knew were. His daughter Mercedes. And Hans Hofmann. If you came into Hofmann’s aura you were aware of a painter called Arthur Carles. But he certainly wasn’t showing. Which is the most important factor. To put the work up and see it. But not what is said about it. In the presence of the work the effect it has on you. But not what is said about it. In the presence of the work the effect it has on you. One couldn’t see Arthur Carles freely, you know. It wasn’t as though there were then that many New York showings or even Philadelphia showings. Or you’d have to get to Philadelphia if there was a show. It just wasn’t available.

BARBARA ROSE: I see. Well, who was showing at the time whose work would provoke unusual interest? I mean among the abstract artists.

LEE KRASNER: Well, you must remember this was a time when I don’t think even Gorky had a gallery. Pollock hadn’t been heard of. And de Kooning wasn’t showing any place. It was a studio to studio affair.

BARBARA ROSE: But there was a lot of interchange of, say, ideas with people going from studio to studio?

LEE KRASNER: That’s right. But this is the way you knew the artists’ work. None of those people had galleries. There were no galleries for this work.

BARBARA ROSE: So the avant-garde was really underground at that time?

LEE KRASNER: Very much underground and very much like whose studio did you go to except for the American Abstract Artists who became an organized body and meet once a week. Their sole purpose was to put up a show once a year at the Riverside Museum and if you paid your dues and were a member you would put up two or three paintings depending on how much space one had.

BARBARA ROSE: There was no committee, in other words?

LEE KRASNER: No.

BARBARA ROSE: If you were a member you were entitled to show?

LEE KRASNER: As a member you submitted. You were told how much space so it was a matter of whether you could send in two paintings or three paintings, you know, pending where the show was being held. You did submit work to be accepted. Once you were accepted that was it. You did your own selection of what went in.

BARBARA ROSE: Where there some painters who had, for example, underground reputations in the group who might not have shown? I mean, for example, did de Kooning and Pollock have underground reputations? Or were they just like anybody else painting in New York at that time? I’m talking about the late 30s at this point.

LEE KRASNER: In the late 30s the name Pollock was totally unknown and unheard of. I knew de Kooning and I went to his studio so I knew about de Kooning’s work. But only a little handful knew about it, you know. Maybe there were ten people that knew about it. That’s a lot. There wasn’t a movement. And Gorky one knew about and one went to his studio or sat and drank beer with him at the Jumble Shop and enthused about Picasso and the latest painting of Picasso’s or Giotto, if that came up, or Ingres.

BARBARA ROSE: There was a lot of interest, in other words, in the old masters as well among the younger painters?

LEE KRASNER: Yes.

BARBARA ROSE: And did people go to museums and would they sketch there?

LEE KRASNER: Oh, yes. This was a pre-state to the state we’re talking about. You’d have had your museum experience and gone through that phase of things. We were now declaring ourselves artists.

BARBARA ROSE: Was there any criticism that was being written at the time that artists read? I mean were there any writers that were well thought of?

LEE KRASNER: At that particular point?

BARBARA ROSE: Yes.

LEE KRASNER: I had no awareness of it. Now, of course, I don’t know if my memory is failing me on it, but I can’t remember the name of a writer writing on the subject that one looked forward to.

BARBARA ROSE: And, of course, nobody was showing. Nobody was being reviewed.

LEE KRASNER: That’s right. It was very underground, as you say.

BARBARA ROSE: What was the point at which it began to surface? I mean as an avant-garde with a sense of its own identity? Was there any kind of turning point in the early 40s when suddenly there was a sense that perhaps the American avant-garde could rival the School of Paris?

LEE KRASNER: Well, I’d say that the beginning of this thing came through with Art of This Century, Peggy Guggenheim’s, where she opened this gallery and began showing some things that caused a little talk, amongst a lot of other things.

BARBARA ROSE: And, of course, the presence of European artists, the refuges and that kind of thing probably….?

LEE KRASNER: Which was in a strong sense still connected with Peggy Guggenheim because the surrealist group were very much part of this. I think they advised her, for instance, with regard to this. I’m not sure. But I think so. So one met Duchamp around Peggy Guggenheim’s. Or Ernst before she divorced him. Matta was here by that time.

BARBARA ROSE: So the avant-garde in other words, began to surface with those first shows of the young Americans at Peggy Guggenheim’s?

LEE KRASNER: I think so. I think that’s terribly safe to say.

BARBARA ROSE: It became public in some way?

LEE KRASNER: That’s right. An exhibition was put up, it was reviewed. People came in and looked and talked and, you know, things began happening. And then Egan followed with his gallery and, you know, things began happening. And Gorky was being shown at the Julien Levi Gallery, you know.

BARBARA ROSE: I wanted to ask you about the part politics played in the 30s. Artists were obviously involved in politics. And you told me a little about your experiences at the Artists Union. And did one’s opinion about politics in any way affect one’s opinion about art? I mean were politics a very important part of the discussion?

LEE KRASNER: You’re talking now about the late 30s, the time of the Artists Union, for instance?

BARBARA ROSE: Yes. What was the purpose of that?

LEE KRASNER: The Artists Union was organized to protect the rights of the artists on the WPA Art Project. In other words, you weren’t a member of that Union unless you were on the WPA. Presumably it was organized to protect the rights of the artist. That was the function of the so-called Artists Union.

BARBARA ROSE: What sort of thing might come up where the artist’s rights needed to be protected? Would it be in terms of wages? Or hours?

LEE KRASNER: No, no wages. Wages were fixed. It wasn’t a matter of fighting for higher pay necessarily. There may have been a little leeway but it would have been so small it wasn’t as though you could shoot off at any number, you know. And the hours were fixed. But there would be all sorts of things, like if you were on the Easel Project and you felt you belonged on the Mural Project, or vice versa, you would go to a grievance committee in the Artists Union and present your dilemma. And if they felt it was valid they’d take it to the administration and work it out. That would be one aspect of what it did.

BARBARA ROSE: I see. Since the social realists were a group of artists who believed that politics should play some part in art, did the abstract artists hold the opposite? Were one’s personal politics, in other words, in any way related to one’s position as an artist?

LEE KRASNER: Now you’ll have to break that down so it’s a little more specific. You mean did the abstract artists have any political point of view?

BARBARA ROSE: Yes. Right.

LEE KRASNER: Well, let’s say I was painting abstractly at the time. I’m an abstract artist. I was active politically.

BARBARA ROSE: By and large were most of the people active politically?

LEE KRASNER: I would say yes, they had an awareness of politics at this particular time and acted it out in some way, by attending meetings, by….

BARBARA ROSE: In other words, like any other group of American intellectuals?

LEE KRASNER: That’s right. By supporting this or by not supporting that, you know. Expressing it in a social sense.

BARBARA ROSE: Yes. What I had in mind was something like the – well, it’s almost a manifesto that appears on the title page of Possibilities, Rosenberg and Motherwell sign disavowing any kind of political content in art.

LEE KRASNER: Well, you must refresh my memory on this.

BARBARA ROSE: It’s just a page in which they say that art and politics have nothing to do with one another and that we must expunge and remove any kind of political reference in art. It’s an art for art’s sake manifesto in a sense.

LEE KRASNER: I see. Well, what about it?

BARBARA ROSE: I just had that in my mind when I asked you about the political beliefs of the abstract artists, whether or not there was a kind of reaction against the politics of the social realists.

LEE KRASNER: I don’t think it was that sharp an issue. As I say, I as an abstract artist was active politically. And I know many others that were.

BARBARA ROSE: But some weren’t?

LEE KRASNER: Sure, there were some that weren’t.

BARBARA ROSE: Well, I’d like to ask you something about your experience as a student of Hofmann’s. At one point you told me that none of Hofmann’s students say any of his paintings.

LEE KRASNER: That’s right.

BARBARA ROSE: That until he had a show in 1944 his own students had no idea how Hofmann painted?

LEE KRASNER: That’s correct.

BARBARA ROSE: What were the classes like at the Boston School?

LEE KRASNER: Well, the classes were conducted in the most orderly sense. You drew from a model up on a platform in the morning. And still life in the afternoon. And you had the model again if you sent to the evening class. Mr. Hofmann would come in twice a week and criticize every student. He would come up to each easel and say what he had to say or do what he chose to do with the work in front of him.

BARBARA ROSE: How many students were involved? Hofmann was the only teacher in his own school?

LEE KRASNER: Oh, yes, that’s right. There was only Hofmann. There’d be a monitor who would be sort of in charge of the class when he wasn’t there. But Hofmann was the only one who gave criticism.

BARBARA ROSE: Was Hofmann an important force at this time?

LEE KRASNER: In what sense?

BARBARA ROSE: Just in the sense of contributing ideas or stimulating people?

LEE KRASNER: Well, I would say very much so insofar as he was teaching Cubism and he had come over and….

BARBARA ROSE: This is essentially what you learned, in other words, in Hofmann’s class?

LEE KRASNER: That’s right.

BARBARA ROSE: The rudiments of Cubism?

LEE KRASNER: That’s right. And as he himself would swing from Picasso to Matisse the criticism would change, you know, depending on what was influencing him more at the moment.

BARBARA ROSE: Did he give formal lectures? Or did he just do individual criticism?

LEE KRASNER: He did individual criticism and for a short period conducted lectures once a week or once a month, I can’t remember now.

BARBARA ROSE: And these lectures were open to the public?

LEE KRASNER: Yes, that is to say I as a student could turn to you and say there’s a lecture, would you like to come? There’d be a fairly good attendance. I don’t remember how many people could fit in to the classroom but it would always be pretty well filled. All the students certainly attended and I imagine each student brought one or two other people with them.

BARBARA ROSE: Well, were there, say a hundred students in the School? Or two hundred?

LEE KRASNER: No, I wouldn’t know. But let’s say – in the working classes you’re talking about. When you went in to work?

BARBARA ROSE: Yes.

LEE KRASNER: Well, I should say the room would hold something like thirty to forty students and it was well filled. At least the School on 8th Street or 9th Street. He had it on 9th and then it went to 8th. So the room would hold somewhere between thirty or forty and it was well-filled at all times.

BARBARA ROSE: What was a typical lecture about? Can you remember?

LEE KRASNER: Oh, dear. No, I can’t remember any of them. But it would be part of what he was teaching, you know: the two-dimensional surface to be punctured and bring it back to the two-dimension again; in effect he was teaching the principles of Cubism.

BARBARA ROSE: Personally what do you feel you learned from Hofmann?

LEE KRASNER: Personally what do I – Ooh! That’s a loaded question. Well, I think now as I try to look back I would say that the most valid think that came to me from Hofmann was his enthusiasm for painting and his seriousness and commitment to it. That is the most I got from Hofmann.

BARBARA ROSE: That’s what people say they learned from Mondrian, too.

LEE KRASNER: Well, I know. But I never had the opportunity to work with Mondrian. Oh! You mean from his paintings?

BARBARA ROSE: No. From him personally. His dedication and the kind of ascetic, dedicated life that he led.

LEE KRASNER: Well, certainly that is so. But then one wasn’t exposed to Mondrian as much as one would be to any teacher conducting a class.

BARBARA ROSE: Yes. Mondrian’s circle was more a coterie of sort of disciplines -

LEE KRASNER: That’s right.

BARBARA ROSE: ….where as there was a large diversity of styles among Hofmann pupils.

LEE KRASNER: Yes, yes, as compared to Mondrian’s certainly.

BARBARA ROSE: Did any of Hofmann’s pupils paint abstractly?

LEE KRASNER: They all painted abstractly at that point: that is to say, if you considered what the teachings of Cubism might produce. At that point it certainly would be called abstract. That is to say, you had a model and there’d be one or two or three people there drawing the model but otherwise you had abstractions all around the room, even though the model was in front of you.

BARBARA ROSE: Was there any feeling of a rebellion against Cubism? I mean was there any fellow who felt “we have to do something new, we have to do something different” I mean because finally American painting becomes something quite different from Cubism.

LEE KRASNER: That’s right. That’s correct. Quite different. But not when one is a student in Hofmann’s class. If you rebelled sufficiently you wouldn’t be in the class as a student.

BARBARA ROSE: Well, what’s the point at which there is a sense of rebellion against Cubism and there is this necessity to do something different?

LEE KRASNER: You mean at what point did I feel it?

BARBARA ROSE: Yes.

LEE KRASNER: At the presence of Pollock’s work.

BARBARA ROSE: His first show at Peggy Guggenheim’s?

LEE KRASNER: Well, I was in a position to see it before, but I would say for public consumption certainly the first exhibition.

BARBARA ROSE: And then you think with the example of Pollock’s painting that the other painters began to feel this dissatisfaction with Cubism?

LEE KRASNER: I couldn’t put it that way. You know, I can only tell you….

BARBARA ROSE: There’s always de Kooning saying that Jackson broke the ice and there’s that….

LEE KRASNER: Well, I would say then that’s what de Kooning is saying too if he says it. But I cannot speak for other painters. I only speak of a public presentation, you know, ignoring my own private one that I knew earlier, or saw it earlier with regard to Pollock. But we can only speak of, you know, public presentation. Well, this show was presented in 1943 and it was open to the public, it got criticized. You know there’s criticism, there’s reaction. So I would say for me that’s the point at which something else happened other than the French School of Painting, including Cubism. And, as you say, if de Kooning says Jackson broke the ice then in effect that is what de Kooning is saying.

BARBARA ROSE: Well, that’s a very famous….

LEE KRASNER: But I cannot quote any of the other painters about at which point they felt what they did. I can only talk about what’s presented publicly.

BARBARA ROSE: But, in other words, just chronologically you would say it’s in the early 40s when people began to be dissatisfied or began to take….?

LEE KRASNER: That’s right. Well, definitely so. If we take this show of 1943 of Pollock’s, which makes it the early 1940s, it’s shortly after that that Howard Putzel who had been working for Peggy Guggenheim and who has now opened his own gallery, Gallery 67 I think it’s called, put up at the end of the first year of his gallery a show called A Challenge to the Critics.

BARBARA ROSE: And what was in that show?

LEE KRASNER: I’d have to get the brochure and read off the names. I can remember – well, I can’t remember, I can’t trust memory now, but there’s a record of this show. And there’s a foreword in the catalogue by Mr. Putzel in which in effect he say, “You name it,” to the critic of what’s happening now.

BARBARA ROSE: That something was happening at that point.

LEE KRASNER: Yes. By this time….

BARBARA ROSE: People realized that is was something different.

LEE KRASNER: Certainly there’s the awareness of the man who put this show on and called it A Challenge of the Critics, and you say what’s happening now.

BARBARA ROSE: And by this initial time was there an intention on the part of the artists to transcend or to go beyond what the French School had done?

LEE KRASNER: Things were shaping.

BARBARA ROSE: One question that personally I’m curious about: all this was going on during the war and all these people were in New York during the war. Was the war paramount in the artist’s life? Was it particularly difficult to paint then?

LEE KRASNER: I’d say that would become an individual affair. But the one thing that took place with regard to the artists was that the French painting wasn’t as available to be seen.

BARBARA ROSE: Of course, they’d been cut off.

LEE KRASNER: Yes. You know, things slowed up; were cut off. Absolutely!

BARBARA ROSE: But there was as much activity in New York as usual in the art world?

LEE KRASNER: In our small little art world, it was, you know….

BARBARA ROSE: Well, were people affected by the war? I mean did they talk about it?

LEE KRASNER: I think so. People were very affected by the war. But it didn’t mean you stopped painting unless you were called into the Army; then you just couldn’t paint. But otherwise one continued.

BARBARA ROSE: Was there any connection between, or any lines of communication between the earlier American avant-garde painters, that is, the Stieglitz painters and the younger abstract artists?

LEE KRASNER: Not a direct connection in that sense. We knew that these painters existed. But somehow or other they were remote, they were far away. I would say the French painting was closer to us.

BARBARA ROSE: I see. How about a person like Stuart Davis? Did he play an important fulfilled role?

LEE KRASNER: Yes. He was one of the painters on the Project, but other than the Project he was a painter one was aware of, and one knew what Stuart Davis was doing. And watched him.

BARBARA ROSE: Who would you say was important in terms of generating ideas in the late 30s? I somehow remember Gorky as the one being loudest, most noisy in that sense in the late 30s. And John Graham. Can you tell me a little about John Graham? He’s an artist whom I don’t know and his work even at this point isn’t readily available.

LEE KRASNER: Tell you something about him?

BARBARA ROSE: What sort of person was he? I’ve heard from a number of painters that Graham played an important role. But what did he do exactly in that he….

LEE KRASNER: He was in touch with artists. He knew European painters. He had an awareness of what was happening. He moved around. And in that sense one knew that John Graham was one of the people – as there were so few then – who was interested in the painting that interested us.

BARBARA ROSE: How about his own work? Do you think that was directly invariably influential?

LEE KRASNER: I would say – and this is awfully difficult now to try to – I would say that my awareness of John Graham or his influence at that time is that I think people like Gorky and de Kooning were very aware of John Graham. Now whether it affected their painting, or to what extent, I’m not in a position to say at this point.

BARBARA ROSE: In the late 30s I guess there was just kind of one nucleus? I mean things hadn’t broken down into factions or cliques yet? It was just kind of one little tiny underground art world, in other words?

LEE KRASNER: More or less, yes. As compared to now.

BARBARA ROSE: Well, did John Graham, for example, recognize the younger American painters? Was he important in that sense?

LEE KRASNER: Well, I’d say that John Graham was the first to mention Jackson Pollock as one of the greatest painters America has produced and he called it at a time when the name Jackson Pollock was barely know.

BARBARA ROSE: In the early 40s, you mean?

LEE KRASNER: I’m not talking of the time which precedes Peggy Guggenheim’s first showing of Pollock.

BARBARA ROSE: And Graham had already acknowledged him?

LEE KRASNER: Fully acknowledged him. And said so to anyone who cared to listen.

BARBARA ROSE: Well, it’s true of de Kooning as well because in his book which was published in 1937, System and Dialectic of Art he’s already talking about de Kooning.

LEE KRASNER: Yes.

BARBARA ROSE: So that he apparently was one of the very few people around who could discern this quality when he saw it.

LEE KRASNER: Precisely.

BARBARA ROSE: I suppose he was important in that sense.

LEE KRASNER: Exactly. And, of course, you see de Kooning knew Graham long before anyone had heard the name Jackson Pollock. Yet Graham said on meeting Pollock and seeing the work a full pronouncement: greatest painter in America.

BARBARA ROSE: How did Pollock come of Peggy Guggenheim’s attention?

LEE KRASNER: I think that – now let me see: Robert Motherwell who must have been in touch with Peggy Guggenheim at that point, met Jackson and told him that there was going to be an exhibition of young painters at this place. And that resulted in Pollock being included in one of the shows – a group show. Which preceded the 1943 solo show.

BARBARA ROSE: Was anybody meeting and selling paintings at that time?

LEE KRASNER: Very little had been sold any place along the line.

BARBARA ROSE: I see. In other words, there were no collectors yet for this new work?

LEE KRASNER: Hardly. Gorky seemed to have one or two. I believe Sidney Janis was one of Gorky’s collectors at that point.

BARBARA ROSE: Well, how did people live then? What was the way of making a living?

LEE KRASNER: It would become, again, individual in terms. I believe Gorky did some teaching. And then there was the WPA.

BARBARA ROSE: That was going on until then?

LEE KRASNER: I haven’t got the dates exactly to when it ended. It became a war service project after it terminated as an art project and finally dwindled out totally.

BARBARA ROSE: Was anybody encouraging the young abstract artists? Was anybody encouraging this effort in the late 30s or early 40s?

LEE KRASNER: I can’t remember the date of the book by Harriet and Sidney Janis. When did that come about?

BARBARA ROSE: That was 1944 I think.

LEE KRASNER: Well, that’s early 40s you see.

BARBARA ROSE: Yes. Abstract and Surrealist Art.

LEE KRASNER: ….In America. So you had something like this book which takes several years before it comes out – so you did have someone coming to your studio to look at your work to be in a book.

BARBARA ROSE: And by that time Greenberg at least was writing art criticism.

LEE KRASNER: Yes, certainly. He was writing art criticism in The Nation.

BARBARA ROSE: And did everybody read his articles? Did his word carry a lot of weight?

LEE KRASNER: Well, there was so little written what we read every word written on the subject. Certainly. I don’t know how much will or weight it was carrying back there. But certainly one looked to The Nation for art criticism as well as the few other little places.

BARBARA ROSE: Where else would you see it?

LEE KRASNER: Well, you’d have your Times, your Tribune, The Nation.

BARBARA ROSE: The newspaper critics?

LEE KRASNER: Yes.

BARBARA ROSE: But did anyone take them seriously? I guess Jewell was writing for The Times.

LEE KRASNER: Yes, one read them. You know, as I said, there was so little that one read every bit of criticism that appeared. You know, there was not very much picking then.

BARBARA ROSE: Yes, there were art magazines but they weren’t talking about the new painting.

LEE KRASNER: Oh, no! No.

BARBARA ROSE: Until Tom Hess became editor of Art News there was nothing.

LEE KRASNER: Yes, but when was that?

BARBARA ROSE: Late 40s.

LEE KRASNER: Late 40s, yes. By then a lot had taken place.

BARBARA ROSE: Yes. Right.

LEE KRASNER: To imagine the tiny little thing it was back then! The explosion was so violent. And now we’re moving two generations away from the explosion. You’re taking me back to pre-time, it must sound wild to you.

BARBARA ROSE: Yes, from a handful of artists to thousands of artists, hundreds of collectors, and dozens of galleries.

LEE KRASNER: Exactly. Think of what you have in gallery space now.

BARBARA ROSE: Yes. Was there any other gallery outside of Peggy Guggenheim’s in the early 40s showing Americans?

LEE KRASNER: Well, there was Julien Levi.

BARBARA ROSE: He showed Gorky but did he show others?

LEE KRASNER: Right. And Matisse was only showing French painting; no Americans. And at this point we were very much interested in getting galleries for ourselves.

BARBARA ROSE: Where could you go if you didn’t go to Art of This Century?

LEE KRASNER: When did Egan open? And Kootz opened sometime around then. You know, things began to….

BARBARA ROSE: Yes, began to proliferate little by little.

LEE KRASNER: Right.

BARBARA ROSE: But there still wasn’t much buying?

LEE KRASNER: Well, no. Not much of anything in that sense. And compared with today it’s equivalent to no buying.

BARBARA ROSE: What was the social life of the artists like? Was it a very Bohemian art world?

LEE KRASNER: Bohemian?

BARBARA ROSE: Yes, in the sense of Montparnasse and the French Latin quarter. Was it like that?

LEE KRASNER: I would say it was a small little Bohemian world.

BARBARA ROSE: Because earlier the writers had had in the Village a sort of Bohemian life.

LEE KRASNER: Yes. Well, the artists in part were in a cross section of this Bohemian life.

BARBARA ROSE: What were the studios like? Where might you go to eat?

LEE KRASNER: Well, Gorky’s studio was in the Village on 14th Street or right off 14th – Union Square.

BARBARA ROSE: Where was your studio?

LEE KRASNER: My studio was on 9th Street between University and Broadway. Jackson was on 8th Street between University and Broadway. De Kooning was in a loft on 22nd Street. It was all within a walking area. One could in one evening, for instance, tour three or four of the studios. Or we might meet at Gorky’s. But never as a group, you see. It wouldn’t be a group movement. The only place that became a group would be if we were at the Jumble Shop having a beer together. You might walk in for a beer and find Gorky there, and in a little while someone else would join you. But it wouldn’t ever be a group in a studio. I do remember one very curious episode by way of group. It was a meeting called by Gorky and we met in de Kooning’s studio. Unfortunately, aside from Gorky, de Kooning, and me, I can’t give you many more absolutely definite names.

BARBARA ROSE: And it was a meeting for what principle reason?

LEE KRASNER: Well, Gorky called the meetings. And he made the announcement that we must admit we were defeated. This was a little earlier, too, not in the 40s, a little earlier in time. He got up and said we must admit we were defeated.

BARBARA ROSE: Like 1938 or 1939?

LEE KRASNER: I would imagine somewhere in there. I would have to research to get it down specifically. I didn’t know Pollock at this point, the name Pollock had never been heard of. And Gorky felt that perhaps we could as a group do a painting. And when we asked what he meant, he said, “Well now, here we are about six or seven of us and there’s one person who can draw better than the others, there’s one who has better ideas than the others, there’s one who is better at color than the others. Now what we have to do is sit and talk this over and come up with a thought and then we all go home and do our separate things and bring them back and then we’ll decide who should draw it, who should paint it, who should color it.” Well, we never got too far. I don’t think there was a second meeting; or if there was, there was never a third meeting. The canvas never came about.

BARBARA ROSE: That’s a kind of new version of the Greek story where you take the head of the most beautiful woman, and the neck of the….

LEE KRASNER: Exactly.

BARBARA ROSE: But Gorky was serious about this?

LEE KRASNER: He was. But not for any length of time. Whether it was just a flying fancy or not. But anyway this meeting was called. I attended it. And the painting never came about.

BARBARA ROSE: Why did he say you were defeated? What did he mean by that?

LEE KRASNER: I don’t know. It was a pronouncement.

BARBARA ROSE: Did he often make these pronouncements?

LEE KRASNER: No, that’s the only one I can remember of that kind. Oh, he made pronouncements but of this nature that’s the only one I can remember. It’s the only meeting he ever called. And why it was placed in de Kooning’s studio I can’t remember. I wonder if de Kooning would remember. You should ask him about this. Or I should. Somebody should.

BARBARA ROSE: When did you first meet Pollock? You say that Pollock was not part of this circle in the late 30s?

LEE KRASNER: No.

BARBARA ROSE: He was on the WPA easel project, wasn’t he?

LEE KRASNER: Yes, that’s right, he was.

BARBARA ROSE: But he just wasn’t part of this milieu?

LEE KRASNER: That’s right.

BARBARA ROSE: And he was brought in when?

LEE KRASNER: Well, I met Pollock because Graham had come up to my studio and asked me to join an exhibition of French and American painting at the McMillen Gallery and he said the only other two Americans in it, or unknown Americans, besides me were de Kooning – and I knew de Kooning – and Jackson Pollock. And I had not heard the name.

BARBARA ROSE: This was in 1941, wasn’t it?

LEE KRASNER: Yes. I’d never heard the name Pollock and certainly didn’t know what his painting looked like. And I was delighted to be in the exhibition because the French names were Matisse, Braque, Picasso. Nevertheless I was very curious about this Pollock person. I thought I knew everybody in New York City who was painting abstractly. I met someone an opening who knew Pollock and I got his address and found he was just around the corner from me. Something got into me and I just went up and introduced myself. I met him and saw his work. In effect this invitation to the show of John Graham’s was how I met someone called Pollock.

BARBARA ROSE: And after that then….?

LEE KRASNER: Then I took him to meet de Kooning because I knew de Kooning. I said, “Do you know de Kooning?” Because he’s in the show.” And he said, no.

BARBARA ROSE: The mixture of American and French work must have been a kind of important aspect of the show. I mean to give one the ideas that American works could be shown in this kind of….

LEE KRASNER: Well, you asked earlier about what did John Graham do, you see, this was the sort of thing he did.

BARBARA ROSE: Yes. Did he organize other exhibitions? Was he active?

LEE KRASNER: He just must have organized, but this is the only one I know about. He was aware and active in that sense.

BARBARA ROSE: Was there anybody else who was?

LEE KRASNER: Oh a par to John at the time? I’d say no. In that sense he was singularly unique in terms of his response to painting and his trying to do something about it.

BARBARA ROSE: I’m curious to know at what point artists finally got the ideas that then could do something as good as European painting or French painting.

LEE KRASNER: Well, I think that’s going to be a heck of a one to trace, at which particular moment it happened. You can only speak of it in terms – I feel you can only speak of it in terms of when it became public display and was open for -. Of course, the underground was essential before it became public. But I should imagine everyone would have had their own separate underground.

BARBARA ROSE: Yes, but there must have been one point at which suddenly everybody thought – well, I mean because after a white in the 50s you get all kinds of chauvinistic talk.

LEE KRASNER: Well, by 1950, you see – I mentioned Pollock’s show in 1943 as the point at which I felt that the turning started, you know, the action started, so to speak. And by 1950 someone like Pollock had a show every year. A full public show.

BARBARA ROSE: And then it was manifest that American painting was in a different position vis-à-vis European….

LEE KRASNER: Yes. By 1950, yes.

BARBARA ROSE: And, of course, everybody had shown by 1950.

LEE KRASNER: By 1950 it was, you know, going.

BARBARA ROSE: Yes. I just wondered where there wasn’t some moment at which people suddenly felt that American art had a chance to be on a par with European art. Because I don’t think that was ever felt in this country before.

LEE KRASNER: That’s right.

BARBARA ROSE: That that kind of ambition….

LEE KRASNER: That’s right.

BARBARA ROSE: ….was simply not open to American artists.

LEE KRASNER: There I’d agree with you.

BARBARA ROSE: Well, at what point do you think that New York ceased to be provincial in the sense of a province of Paris?

LEE KRASNER: That New York ceased to be provincial?

BARBARA ROSE: Yes.

LEE KRASNER: I think it’s provincial right now in the art world. But if you’re talking about back then it would be hard for me to pin it down more specifically than I have already. I say the 1943 show of Pollock was the turning point.

BARBARA ROSE: Yes. I think you’d get a lot of people to agree with you there.

LEE KRASNER: Well, then, you mean the tempo at which it moved? Or what?

BARBARA ROSE: I just wondered if there were other significant events, other very significant shows in the 40s.

LEE KRASNER: Well, I think what it did was give an impetus to a great many artists who, you know, came to their own height and force.

BARBARA ROSE: Yes, and, of course, around 1950 you got all those artists who changed from being figurative painters, like Guston and Kline, and Brooks, and Tworkov, and a number of others who became abstract painters somewhere around 1950.

LEE KRASNER: Yes. And that was exactly seven years later. And, as I say, there had been one consecutive show after the other by Pollock.

BARBARA ROSE: I didn’t rely – I didn’t realize he was showing that much.

LEE KRASNER: Of, of course. Every year. I think there was one year not, I think 1944 or 1945, I don’t know….but otherwise there was a show every year. Then in 1949 he had two exhibitions.

BARBARA ROSE: Oh, really? Where?

LEE KRASNER: At Betty Parsons.

BARBARA ROSE: Two in the same year!

LEE KRASNER: Two in the same year, in 1949. One in January and one in November. So it more than equated one show a year form 1943 on. These were full exhibitions going up each year.

BARBARA ROSE: The reason he had two shows in 1949 – was that because he had done such a lot of work? There was enough for two shows?

LEE KRASNER: No, it was a matter – one was January and one was November – you know it may have had to do with Betty’s schedule for all I know. And he was at this point painting prolifically, you know, so there were two full shows; there are records of those shows today. And at that point the French School was lost some place.

BARBARA ROSE: Yes. Well, of course, after the war the whole situation changed. I guess what happened was news was more or less cut off during the war. And then when everything opened up again the situation had changed completely and there was actually something going on in New York.

LEE KRASNER: Something very vital and very alive going on in New York at that point.

END OF INTERVIEW

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