Authors: Gail Levin
Chapter 17: The Feminist Decade, 1970â79 (pp. 389â426)
1. 1972-Rose-2, 154.
2. 1972-Rose-2, 154.
3. 1977-Diamonstein-1; LK used the same reference to the Surrealists' “French poodle idea” of women with 1981-Langer.
4. See 2007-Levin.
5. 1983-Kernan, L1.
6. 1972-Rose-1.
7. 1979-Munro, 107.
8. 1972-Rose-2, 118.
9. 1972-Holmes.
10. 1973-Wallach-1.
11. 1980-Taylor.
12. 1973-Nemser, 64.
13. 1972-Glueck.
14. 1972-Glueck.
15. 1972-Glueck.
16. See Hilton Kramer,
NYT,
September 5, 1977, AAA, reel 3776, frames 1191 and 1196.
17. 1977-Ratcliff, 82.
18. 1972-Rose-1.
19. 1978-Cavaliere.
20. 1978-Cavaliere.
21. 1972-Holmes.
22. 1978-Cavaliere.
23. The others were Corita Kent, Lois Johnson, Leila Autio, Elinor Minkus, Fay Lansner, Rachel Toner, Jean Schiff, Shirley Cleary, and Joyce Blunk.
24. 2007-Levin, 229â30.
25. Jackie MacElroy, “Art Show Transcends Sexual Propaganda,”
The Dakota Student,
March 1973, 4, LK, AAA, reel 3776, frame 1078.
26. Hilton Kramer, “Lee Krasner,”
NYT,
April 28, 1973, 20.
27. Barbara Rose, “The Best Game Is the End Game,”
New York,
April 30, 1973, 92.
28. 1973-Wallach-1, Part II, 4.
29. 1973-Wallach-1, Part II, 4. Also, “â21 Over 60' Show Talent Is Ageless,”
NYT,
July 29, 1973.
30. 1995-Friedman, 232.
31. 1973-Freed.
32. Barbara Rose, “The Jackson Pollock Story,”
New York,
vol. 5, no. 38, September 18, 1972, 64. At a dinner after the Krasner symposium that I organized in April 1977, I head Rose apologize to Friedman for this harsh review. What followed in terms of Pollock biographies and Hollywood film indicates that such stereotypes and distortions could go much further than anything Friedman wrote.
33. Donald McKinney to the author, interview of 1-19-2010.
34. At the time, the Dallas Museum already owned Pollock's
Cathedral,
a 1947 canvas acquired in 1950.
35. A. T. Baker, “Out of the Shade,”
Time,
November 19, 1973, 76.
36. 1973-Wallach-2, 4A.
37. Hilton Kramer, “Lee Krasner's ArtâHarvest of Rhythms,”
NYT,
November 22, 1973.
38. Barbara Rose, “The Best Midwestern Museum in New York?”
New York
, December 10, 1973, 102.
39. Pamela Adler, Chronology in 1973-Tucker, 38.
40. 1973-Wallach-2, 5A.
41. 1973-Tucker, 7.
42. 2008-Tucker, 104.
43. 2008-Tucker, 104â05. Tucker to the author, interview of 2005, also stressed Krasner's stinting on food.
44. Author's interview with Eugene Victor Thaw, 9-9-2010 and earlier.
45. LK quoted in letter from Donald McKinney in
Anonymous Was a Woman: A Documentation of the Women's Art Festival: A Collection of Letters to Young Women Artists
(Valencia, Calif.: Feminist Art Program, California Institute of the Arts, 1974), 95â96. Statement adapted from interview for 1975-Nemser, 95.
46. Griffin Smith,
Miami Herald
, March 17, 1974, 10-G.
47. 1974-Hutchinson, 4C.
48. Margaret Harris, “Krasner Shows Her True Colors,”
Philadelphia Daily News
, April 5, 1974, LKP, AAA, roll 3776, frame 1135.
49. Laurel Daunis-Allen to the author, 1-18-2010.
50. LK as reported by Victoria Donohoe, “Krasner Emerges from the Imposing Pollock Shadow,”
Philadelphia Inquirer,
April 1974, 13-K.
51. 1975-Baro, 10.
52. Paul Richard, “Corcoran Openings: Krasner, Plus Four,”
Washington Post
, January 11, 1975, B1.
53. Benjamin Forgey, “Three Decades with Lee Krasner,”
Washington Star-News
, LKP, AAA, reel 3776, frame 1151.
54. See Gene Baro, “Art,”
New Boston Review,
Fall 1975, AAA, reel 3776, fram 1160-A.
55. 1975-Taylor, A9.
56. 1975-Taylor, A9.
57. LK to Lucille Bandes, “Women and Art,”
L'Official
, Holiday Issue, 1976, AAA, reel 3776, frame 1163-A.
58. Alex Rosenberg to the author, 3-14-2010. Krasner's design was printed at Chiron Press in New York.
59. Alex Rosenberg to the author, 3-14-2010.
60. Lee Krasner,
An American Portrait, 1776â1976: 33 Contemporary Masters Join in a Trilogy Celebrating the Bicentennial.
The line is from T. S. Eliot's “Little Gidding,” No. 4 of
Four Quartets.
61. Ruth Appelhof to the author, interview of 9-4-2007.
62. Dyne Benner to the author, interview of 5-1-2008. Benner now works as a food stylist.
63. They include Ann Bridgeman and Alice Culbreth of Wilton, Connecticut; Elfreda Finch from Basking Ridge, New Jersey; Marjorie Michael, Mary Lou Harrison, and Gloria Conklin of Chappaqua, New York; Martha Martin of Carrollton, Georgia; and Helen Barnes of New Canaan, Connecticut. See “Lee Krasner Top Abstractionist at Schilling Conference,”
Seaside Topics
, Watch Hill, Rhode Island, July 18, 1975.
64. Marjorie M. Michael and Virginia Olsen Baron,
A Woman's Journey
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974).
65. Marjorie M. Michael, journal for July 26, 1974, noted “Watch Hill, RI Dune House, Artist conference and Lee Krasner! Remarkable womanâexcellent painter.” Collection of Melissa Michael Sheldon.
66. Marjorie M. Michael to Gerald Dickler, letter of July 23, 1986, collection Melissa Michael Sheldon.
67. Marjorie M. Michael, journal for September 1977, Block Island, New York.
68. Dyne Benner to the author, interview of 5-1-2008.
69. Joan Semmel to the author, interview of 3-2-2010.
70. http://www.caroleeschneemann.com/interiorscroll.html
71. 1976-Glueck. For the Rothko estate story, see Lee Seldes,
The Legacy of Mark Rothko: An Expose of the Greatest Art Scandal of Our Century
(New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1974).
72. See Grace Glueck, “Art People,”
NYT,
January 21, 1977, and the ad “In Protest,” which appeared there on page D23 on Sunday, January 23, 1977. The American art world was not unanimous; among those who thought the museum should be considered separately from government policy were artists Robert Rauschenberg and Larry Rivers, as well as the dealer Leo Castelli.
73. Lee Krasner quoted in “The Tops and Flops,”
Newsday,
December 26, 1976, AAA, reel 3776, frame 1170.
74. 1977-Rodgers, 3.
75. 1977-Rodgers, 8.
76. 1981-Langer.
77. 1972-Holmes.
78. Bill King to the author, 3-21-2010.
79. “RediscoveredâWomen Painters,”
Time,
January 10, 1977, AAA, reel 3776, frame 1171.
80. Judy Klemesrud, “Joan Mondale Speaks Out for the Arts,”
NYT,
September 30, 1977, AAA, reel 3776, frame 1193.
81. 1977-Rodgers.
82. 1977-Rodgers.
83. 1977-Rose-2, 96.
84. 1977-Rose-2, 100.
85. 1977-Tallmer.
86. Betty Friedan,
The Feminine Mystique
(New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1963).
87. 1977-Bourdon, 57.
88. 1977-Bourdon, 57.
89. 1977-Bourdon, 57.
90. See Robert Hobbs, “Lee Krasner's Skepticism and Her Emergent Postmodernism,”
Woman's Art Journal,
vol. 28, no. 2, Fall/Winter 2007, 3â10.
91. 1977-Tallmer.
92. 1977-Glueck-1.
93. 1977-Tallmer.
94. 1977-Tallmer.
95. Sol LeWitt, “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art,”
Artforum,
June 1967.
96. Deborah Kass to the author, 1-28-2010, and follow-up e-mail of 1-29-2010.
97. Hilton Kramer, “Two New ShowsâLee Krasner and Mary Frank,”
NYT,
March 6, 1977.
98. Hilton Kramer, “Two New ShowsâLee Krasner and Mary Frank,”
NYT,
March 6, 1977.
99. William Zimmer, “Rearranged Anatomy: Petals Made with a Compass,”
SoHo Weekly News
, March 3, 1977, 20.
100. See 2007-Levin, 153, 197â98, etc., and Judy Chicago,
Through the Flower: My Struggle as a Woman Artist
(New York: Doubleday, 1975).
101. Simone de Beauvoir,
The Second Sex
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953), 348.
102. Jenny Tango, “Lee Krasner at Pace Gallery,”
WIA newsletter
, vol. IV, no. 8, May 1977, n.p.
103. 1977-Wallach.
104. 1977-Glueck-1.
105. Robert Hobbs to LK, letter of 9-1-1977, LKP, AAA, thanks LK for her hospitality during our visit and notes: “As mentioned before Gail will contact you in Manhattan and look at some of your earlier work.” Contrary to 1999-Hobbs, 194, n. 42, which places our visit in June, it took place from August 27â29, 1977. This is confirmed by this letter and Rose's film outtakes. See also 1993-Hobbs, 96, n. 3, where he lists the visit as taking place in August 1977.
106. “Lee Krasner: The Long View,”
New York Post,
October 30, 1978.
107. 1978-Glueck.
108. Dianna Morris, “Balanced Gestures,”
Women Artists News
, vol. 7, no. 4, January/February 1982, 10.
109. 1977-Diamonstein-1.
110. 1979-Cavaliere, 41.
111. Hilton Kramer, “Art: Elegiac Works of Lee Krasner,”
NYT,
February 9, 1979.
112. LK quoted in
The Art Newsletter
, vol. IV, no. 3, October 3, 1978, 1.
113. Even films such as
Who the #$&% is Jackson Pollock?
and many headlines have been made about questions of purported authenticity and Pollock.
114. Harry Rand to Lee Krasner, letter of 12-12-1978, LKP, AAA.
115. Ellen G. Landau to the author, 8-10-2006, LKP, AAA.
116. Ellen G. Landau to LK, letter of 12-12-1978, LKP, AAA.
117. Harry Rand to the author, 2-22-2010.
118. Ellen G. Landau to LK, letter of 2-16-1979, LKP, AAA, roll 3773, frame 396.
119. Harry Rand to the author, 2-22-2010.
120. Ms. labeled “FINAL COPY SENT to Foundation for Printing in catalogue, 1/19/79,” LKP, AAA, roll 3773, frame 171. This catalogue was never printed; the Foundation, which does not specialize in contemporary art, subsequently sold this painting.
121. Ms. labeled “FINAL COPY SENT to Foundation for Printing in catalogue, 1/19/79,” LKP, AAA, roll 3773, frame 171.
122. 1979-Cavaliere, 41.
123. 1979-Cavaliere, 41.
124. Hilton Kramer, “Art: Elegiac Works of Lee Krasner,”
NYT,
February 9, 1979.
125. Eleanor Munro, “Krasner in the Sixties Free for the Big Gesture,”
Art World,
February 16, 1979, AAA, reel 3771, frame 143.
126. Barbara Cavaliere, “Lee Krasner,”
Arts Magazine,
vol. 53, no. 8, April 1979, 24.
127. Daniel Wildenstein to Lee Krasner, letter of 11-29-1979, LKP, AAA, roll 3773, frame 394.
128. Lee Ann Miller to Lee Krasner, letter of 11-28-1979, AAA, reel 3773, frame 373.
129. Archives of the author. I read: “I first met Lee Krasner in 1970 when interviewing her about Jackson Pollock. As I came to know and appreciate her work, I was able to include her in the
exhibition, Abstract Expressionism: The Formative Years held at the Whitney Museum in 1978. It is a pleasure for me to read to you her acceptance of this award.” In fact I was in error, since a letter from Marlborough Gallery to Lee Krasner that survives in her archives dates my first interview to January 1971, LKP, AAA.
130. Wendy Slatkin,
The Voices of Women Artists
(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1993), 240.
131. 1978-Cavaliere.
132. 1979-Cavaliere, 41.
133. 1979-Novak.
134. 1979-Munro, 107.
135. 1980-Portfolio, 68â69.
136. 1980-Portfolio, 68â69.
137. Letter is in the archives at MoMA.
138. On October 13, 1979, I spoke on “Richard Pousette-Dart's Painting and Sculpture: Form, Poetry, and Significance” at the conference in Charlottesville.
139. Ellen G. Landau,
Lee Krasner: A Study of Her Early Career (1926â1949),
University of Delaware, June 1981.
140. Ellen Landau to the author, interview of 8-10-06.
141. Krasner quoted in Ruth Latter, “Passionate Art Can Unleash Intense Emotion,”
The Daily Progress
, Charlottesville, Virginia, F2.
142. Ellen Landau to William Rubin, letter of 10-15-1979, MoMA archives.
143. Helene Aylon to the author, 10-22-2007.
144. Helene Aylon to the author, 10-22-2007.
145. Helene Aylon to the author, 10-22-2007.
Chapter 18: Retrospective, 1980â84 (pp. 427â452)
1. Stony Brook Foundation Award for Distinguished Contributions to Higher Education, March 27, 1980.
2. William S. Rubin to Harry Rand, letter of 1-11-1980, MoMA archives.
3. Harry Rand to William S. Rubin, letter of 5-20-1980, MoMA archives.
4. William S. Rubin to Harry Rand, letter of 5-28-1980, MoMA archives.
5. 1980-Bennett.
6. 1980-Braff, 8.
7. 1980-Bennett.
8. Archives of the Museum of Modern Art, Cur Exh # 1385.
9. Barbara Rose to the author, 3-15-2010.
10. Ellen Landau to Lee Krasner, letter 4-3-78, LKP, AAA, reel 3772, frame 1358.
11. LK to Gail Levin, letter of 3-15-1981, and Ellen Landau to LK, letter of 2-19-1981, LKP, AAA, roll 3773, frames 719â721 and 742 (LK to me) and 734 (LK to Barbara Rose).
12. Ellen Landau to LK, letter of 2-19-1981, LKP, AAA.
13. Eugene V. Thaw to the author, 4-1-2010.
14. Barbara Rose to the author, 3-15-2010. Landau soon turned her attention to Pollock, on whom she has written extensively, and eventually declared some recently discovered paintings to be authentic works by Pollock, while many leading experts on Pollock disagreed. Subsequent tests at Harvard's Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies showed that some of the paint used on the works in question was manufactured long after Pollock's death. See David Usborne, “Experts Pour Scorn on Pollock Finds after Tests,”
The Independent
, February 1, 2007. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/experts-pour-scorn-on-pollock-finds-after-tests-434567.html.
15. Lee Krasner to Prof. William I. Homer, letter of 3-19-1981, LKP, AAA, roll 3773, frame 749.
16. 1981-Cavaliere, 34.
17. 1981-Cavaliere, 34.
18. John Russell, “Lee Krasner,”
NYT,
March 27, 1981, C17.
19. 1981-Tallmer, 17. The following quotations are from this source. Krasner marked the page number by hand and saved this article in her papers, AAA, LKP, roll 3776, frame 1330.
20. John Post Lee to Gail Levin, interview of 5-23-2007. Today John Post Lee is an art dealer in New York City. He got his start through LK's recommending him to Robert Miller, who introduced him to Tibor de Nagy, where he first worked.
21. See Grace Glueck, “Art World Figures Defend Director of the Whitney,”
NYT,
February 3, 1990; Kay Larson, “Whose Museum Is It, Anyway?
New York Magazine,
February 12, 1990, 30â37.
22. John Post Lee to the author, interview of 5-23-2007.
23. John Post Lee to the author, interview of 5-23-2007.
24. 1981-Delatiner.
25. 1981-Delatiner.
26. William Pellicone, “Bombshell of a Sleeper,”
Artspeak,
AAA, reel 3776, frame 1001, noted that this review was written in early August and was printed in several Suffolk County newspapers.
27. 1981-Delatiner.
28. 1981-Delatiner.
29. 1981-Delatiner.
30. 1981-Wallach, 34.
31. 1981-Rose.
32. 1981-Rose.
33. John Post Lee to the author, interview of 5-23-2007.
34. John Post Lee to the author, interview of 5-23-2007.
35. John Post Lee to the author, interview of 5-23-2007.
36. John Post Lee to the author, says he gave his only copy of his thesis to Robert Hobbs, who, despite my request, was unable to find it.
37. Edward Albee to the author, interview of 12-19-2006.
38. 1981-Glueck-1.
39. 1981-Glueck-1.
40. 1981-Delatiner.
41. Tim Hilton, “Filling the Gaps,”
Observer
(London), March 14, 1982, 33, inscribed clipping is LKP, AAA, roll 3776, frame 1383.
42. 2006-Miller, n.p.
43. Nathan Kernan to the author and his draft of his unpublished ms., 1994â2010.
44. Grace Glueck, “Lee Krasner: The Late 50's,”
NYT
, October 29, 1982, C19.
45. 1983-Rose, 160, note 6.
46. The author once attended a holiday dinner at Edward Albee's home in Montauk, attended by Krasner, the author as her houseguest, Moss, Albee's mother, and Joanna Steichen.
47. Ann Chwatsky to the author, interview of 8-7-2007.
48. Ronald Stein quoted in 1985-Potter, 222.
49. Darby Cardonsky to the author, 9-25-2010.
50. “The Artists Lee Krasner and John Little,”
East Hampton Star,
August 19, 1982, LKP, AAA, reel 3777, frame 8, photograph by Rameshwar Das.
51. Steven W. Naifeh to LK, letter of 6-1-1983, LKP, AAA, reel 3773, frame 1377.
52. Author's interviews with Deborah Solomon, 2009 and 2010. See 1987-Solomon.
53. Eugene V. Thaw to the author, 4-1-2010.
54. 1985-Potter, 276.
55. Terence Netter to the author, 1-16-2009.
56. 1983-Kernan, L1.
57. 1983-Kernan.
58. Lee Krasner quoted in Patricia C. Johnson,
Houston Chronicle
, November 3, 1983, section 4, 1.
59. LKCR no. 599, possibly covering a painting from 1950.
60. Israel Shenker, “A Pollock Sold for $2 Million, Record for American Painting,”
NYT,
September 22, 1973, 25.
61. Lee Krasner quoted in Patricia C. Johnson,
Houston Chronicle,
November 3, 1983, section 4, 1.
62. Robert Hughes, “Bursting Out of the Shadows,”
Time,
November 14, 1983, 92.
63. 1983-Hughes, 92.
64. Judy Chicago to the author in conversation; many times during 2007.
65. 1983-Hughes, 92.
66. Susie Kalil, “Lee Krasner: A Life's Work,”
Artweek
, December 10, 1983, 1.
67. William Wilson, “Woman behind Jackson Pollock Steps up Front,”
Los Angeles Times
, AAA, reel 3776, frame 1000-A. For examples of Wilson's writing about feminist art, see also 2007-Levin, 140â41, 207, 248, 299.
68. Thomas Albright, “Krasner: Energy Rather Than Power,”
Review,
February 26, 1984, 12â13. Albright would die of lung cancer at the age of forty-eight later that same year.
69. Thomas Albright, “Krasner: Energy Rather Than Power,”
Review,
February 26, 1984, 12â13.
70. Ed Hill and Suzanne Bloom, “Lee Krasner,”
Artforum
, vol. 22, May 1984, 93.
71. 1984-Vetrocq, 143. She referred to Krasner's omission in 1970-Sandler and Henry Geldzahler,
New York Painting and Sculpture: 1940â1970
(New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1969).
72. Irving Sandler in conversation with the author, 2007, claimed that he had made a mistake to leave Krasner out of his first book on the movement, but he did not say this in his book: 2009-Sandler, 229, note 87. See above, chapter 11. Subsequent conversations with Sandler elicited only comments about the attitudes of the period.
73. 1984-Vetrocq, 143.
74. 1984-Cannell, 88.
75. 1984-Kernan, B9.
76. Jason McCoy and Barbara Rose, separately, to the author, 2010.
77. Draft of Lee Krasner letter to Henry Hopkins, 12-13-1983, LKP, AAA, roll 3774, frame 115.
78. Edward Albee to the author, 12-19-2006.
79. Bernard Gotfryd,
The Intimate Eye: Portraits
(New York: Riverside Book Co., 2006), 101, and Bernard Gotfryd to the author, 9-25-2010.
80. Mark Stevens, “The American Masters,”
Newsweek
, January 2, 1984, 67â68.
81. Amei Wallach, “The Fierce Legacy of Lee Krasner,”
Newsday,
June 24, 1984, Part II/17.
82. Gretchen Johnson to LK, letter of March 1984, LKP, AAA, roll 3774, frame 167. Diana Burroughs (then married to LK's nephew Jason McCoy, to the author, 1-21-2010.
83. 1984-Kernan, B9.
84. Eugene V. Thaw interviewed by the author, Tesuque, New Mexico, May 11, 2007. Thaw, born Jewish, converted to Episcopalianism at the age of fifteen while attending St. John's of Annapolis.
85. 1985-Potter, 279.
86. Michael Brenson, “Lee Krasner Pollock Is Dead; Painter of the New York School,”
NYT,
June 21, 1984, 25.
87. Ted Dragon to Helen Harrison, interview taped while touring the Pollock-Krasner house in 2000. In fact, at Ronald Stein's death, he left the house that his aunt had given him to Cooper Union, which sold it, instead of to the PKHSC.
88. 1984-Woodard, 28.
89. 1984-Woodard, 28.
90. 1984-Memorial.
91. 1984-Memorial.
92. 1984-Memorial.