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Olivia Frazier

Carmen Stotts

ART 689

May 2, 2022

Lee Krasner: Umber Series

           Lee Krasner, during her prime, was well known for being the one and only, Mrs. Jackson

Pollock, but it was not until years had passed that many people found out that she was an

amazing artist herself. Most people did not realize how impactful she was as an artist, especially

in the Abstract Expressionist movement, because of the looming shadow of Pollock and the

injustice of being a woman during times of intense sexism in the male-run world of art. Morgan

notes that she played an important role in the start of the Abstract Expressionist movement

during the forties and fifties by being the only woman in the group at the start of the movement

(Morgan 2018). During the years of their marriage, Jackson Pollock was the main focal point

between the pair. Nobody during their marriage could make the separation between them. It is a

popular opinion in recent times, after the passing of them both, that she was unfairly criticized

and overshadowed by Pollock’s popularity in the re-observance of her work. While she made

some stunning and impactful works for the duration of her marriage to Jackson Pollock, her work

amid the mourning period after his death shows such a pure reaction to grief in losing a

significant other as close as she was with Pollock and started the separation of her coming into

her own identity as an artist. This response to death became a twenty-four-painting series called

the Umber Series because of the sepia color palette used in the paintings. The argument can be

made that Lee Krasner’s painting series, Umber Series, done in 1959-1962, after Jackson

Pollock’s death is what changed her career as an artist.

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           Before the Umber Series paintings, Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner were both up-and-

coming artists. They became acquainted through their lives in the artistic scene. Morgan states

that the pair met through a gallery show where they both were requested to showcase their work

(Morgan 2018). Marriage came to the couple later on. During their time as a couple, Krasner put

her career on hold for Pollock. She became the one to help Pollock’s career become as big as it

could while sacrificing her own. In Morgan’s words about Krasner focusing on Pollock’s career,

“Nevertheless, she realized that he possessed an extraordinary talent. Despite her own ambition,

she devoted much of her time through the rest of his life to helping him achieve his potential and

to assuring recognition for his accomplishments” (Morgan 2017). Krasner put in the work to

make Pollock's career big because of how much she cared for Pollock and saw the brilliance of

his work. While Krasner was helping Pollock’s career, Pollock was dealing with his own

demons. He was known for being a very committed alcoholic which contributed to his brute

behavior. Carol Kort talks about their relationship as being like this, “Krasner and Pollock shared

a passionate but tempestuous marriage, in large part because of Pollock's temper, infidelity, and

alcoholism.” (Kort, 2015) Pollock was not a good man, yet Krasner stayed by his side until his

untimely death. Kort goes on to talk about Pollock’s death by saying, “He died, drunk and with a

girlfriend, in an automobile accident in 1956, while Krasner was traveling in France.” (Kort,

2015) Pollock’s death came unexpectedly. Krasner had to make the trip back to America

knowing that her husband had passed away.

  After Pollock’s death, the change to her style is evident through different aspects of her

pieces like size, color, and method of painting. This is where the separation between them seems

to start. One of the ways her whole style had changed was in the dimensions of her pieces.

Mendelsohn says that instead of painting at home, Krasner started using Pollock’s studio instead
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which opened the opportunities for the size of her paintings (Mendelsohn 2017). Another aspect

that changed is seen in her use of color. While using vibrant colors in the past, Krasner switched

her palette during this time to using browns, tans, blacks, and whites. Somberness and mourning

are understood from the color alone in these works. From her use of color in the series, one could

get a sense of simply existing while being in the middle of life and death. The flesh tones give

off a sense of being human, like one is simply surviving in the world with not being able to be a

part of it. Another aspect of these pieces that can be mentioned is the stylistic brush strokes used

in the browns. The swirling strokes give a sense of movement. The different types of strokes give

a sense of the different stages of grief and loss. Some are big and some are small. Some are

violent while others are soft. They convey the ups and downs of grief and trauma. Another aspect

that changed was the headspace and time of day she was creating also changed during this time.

A press release by the Kasmin gallery sums up what Krasner was going through at the time in

addition to dealing with the loss of Pollock stating, “By the end of the 1950s, Krasner’s

emotional turmoil—engendered by not only Pollock’s death, but also her mother’s recent passing

—caused the artist to suffer from severe and chronic insomnia that confined her to work only at

night under artificial light.” (Kasmingallery.com 2017). She not only had to deal with the loss of

her husband but also her mother which caused her to become unable to sleep at all. Some of the

individual pieces seen here

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Uncaged, 1961 (Krasner 1961), and Fecundity 1960 (Krasner 1960) show some of the amazing

works in this series.

The series of paintings Lee Krasner made after the passing of Jackson Pollock are the start

of the separation of the association between her and Pollock. When Pollock and Krasner became

a couple, Krasner left her artistic career to focus on Pollock’s instead. The change in the style of

her paintings she made after Pollock's death shows the start of her making a name for herself.

Lastly, the paintings are iconic in popular media today for how brilliant they are in evoking what

she was going through at the time. Krasner came out of the shadow of Jackson Pollock into

recognition for the amazing artist she is. What can be learned from Lee Krasner’s career is that

even a woman can stand out in a male-dominated world.

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Works Cited

Morgan, Ann Lee. "Krasner, Lee." In The Oxford Dictionary of American Art and Artists. : Oxford

University Press, https://www-oxfordreference-com.library.pittstate.edu/view/10.1093/acref/

9780191807671.001.0001/acref-9780191807671-e-753.

Kort, Carol. "Krasner, Lee." In A to Z of Women: American Women in the Visual Arts, by Carol

Kort, and Liz Sonneborn. 2nd ed. Facts On File, 2015. https://library.pittstate.edu/login?

url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/fofwase/krasner_lee/0?institutionId=3268

Editorial, Artsy, and Meredith Mendelsohn. “The Emotionally Charged Paintings Lee Krasner

Created after Pollock's Death.” Artsy, November 13, 2017.

https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-emotionally-charged-paintings-lee-krasner-

created-pollocks-death.

Kasmin Gallery, November 9, 2017. https://www.kasmingallery.com/exhibition/lee-krasner--

umberpaintings#:~:text=In%20Fecundity%2C%201960%2C%20Krasner

%20establishes,brushwork%2C%20diagonally%20spanning%20the%20composition.

Krasner, Lee. Uncaged. Walterscube.com. Accessed May 3, 2022. https://walterscube.com/wp-

content/uploads/ArtworkPhotos2FA007241.jpeg.

Krasner, Lee. Fecundity. Pinimg.com. Accessed May 3, 2022.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/81/c2/5c/81c25cca51baad662ff75f931eff68b3.jpg.
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