Oh Lee, we hardly knew you.
I’m impressed anew by Lee Krasner’s life and work after reading ‘Ninth Street Women’ by Mary Gabriel. So refreshing to read about Lee (and Elaine, and Joan, and Grace, and Helen, and…) as subject, rather than peripheral to the male painters of their time. Of everything I’ve read and studied, nothing has reflected their contribution, work ethic, talent, the adversity they faced or given them their due as equal participants in the New York School, quite like this account. How I wish I could’ve read this, along with Patti Smith’s freaking wonderful ‘Just Kids’, many years ago.
A couple of years ago I spent some time wandering the rural Long Island property she shared with Pollock - their simple farmhouse, his famous studio barn, Lee’s vegetable gardens. I so appreciated seeing these boots of Lee’s in the small spare room which functioned as her studio, bundled in layers to stave off the chill of North Atlantic winters.
