Lee Krasner (66 page)

1. George L. K. Morris, “Art Chronicle,”
Partisan Review,
6, no. 3, Spring 1939, 63.

2. 1964-Seckler.

3. “Artists Denounce Modern Museum,”
NYT,
April 17, 1940, 23.

4. “Artists Denounce Modern Museum,”
NYT,
April 17, 1940, 23.

5. “Artists Denounce Modern Museum,”
NYT,
April 17, 1940, 23.

6. Larsen, “An Interview with George L. K. Morris,” 484.

7. See Paul Milkman,
PM: A New Deal in Journalism, 1940–1948
(New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1997), and Richard H. Minear,
Dr. Seuss Goes to War
(New York: The New Press, 1999).

8. 1977-Ratcliff.

9. 1966-Rose.

10. 1979-Novak.

11. 1966-Rose.

12. 1966-Rose.

13. Krasner was listed as participating by Jerome Klein, “American Abstract,”
New York Post,
June 8, 1940, a review of the show.

14. Edward Alden Jewell, “Melange of New Shows: A Group of Van Goghs at Holland House—Abstractions by American Artists,”
NYT,
June 9, 1940, X7.

15. 1979-Novak. Years later, she remained perturbed that art historians at a conference on abstract expressionism (held in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1978) spoke about her book by Jung as if it had been Pollock's, attributing all kinds of things to his having read it, which she doubted he had ever done. She insisted: “Now, I would have brought that [negative] attitude to Pollock when I joined him.”

16. George Mercer to LK, letter of August 14, 1940, from Provincetown, PKHSC.

17. George Mercer to LK, November 24, 1940, PKHSC.

18. George Mercer to LK, November 24, 1940, PKHSC.

19. The fair was open for two seasons, from April to October each year, and was officially closed October 27, 1940.

20. 1987-Kamrowski.

21. Lee Krasner to the author, summer 1977 and earlier, in 1971.

22. In May 1933, A. E. Gallatin visited Mondrian's Paris studio and purchased his
Composition with Blue and Yellow,
1932, for his Gallery of Living Art. The next year he bought another Mondrian. Serving as couriers for art, Harry Holtzman and I were the only two passengers on a cargo flight from New York to Paris in 1977, during which time we spoke at length. After I fell asleep, Holtzman photographed me, documenting our conversation and then sending the photographs to me as souvenirs.

23. See Leonard G. Feather, “Art of Boogie Woogie,”
NYT,
April 20, 1941, X7.

24. Harry Holtzman quoted in Robert P. Welsh and Joop M. Joosten,
Piet Mondrian: Catalogue Raisonné
(New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996), vol. II-III, 173.

25. 2002-Rembert, 50. Rembert also lists Peter Greene as having been present, but that was the nickname for Gertrude Greene.

26.
Piet Mondrian: A Catalogue Raisonné,
vol. II-III, 174.

27. 2002-Rembert, 56.

28. 2002-Rembert, 56.

29. 1972-Rose-1.

30. 2002-Rembert, 56.

31. 2002-Rembert, 56.

32. 1977-Diamonstein.

33. George Mercer to Lee Krasner, letter of December 12, 1940, PKHSC.

34. Edward Alden Jewell, “Abstact Artists Put on Exhibition,”
NYT,
February 11, 1941, 28.

35. Henry McBride,
New York Sun,
February 16, 1941, quoted in 2002-Rembert, 57.

36. E.S. [possibly Esphyr Slobodkina],
P.M
., February 1, 1941.

37. 1972-Rose-1.

38. Mondrian to Holtzman, quoted in 1970-Rembert, vii.

39. 2002-Rembert, 56.

40. 1972-Rose-1.

41. 1972-Rose-1.

42. 1977-Ratcliff.

43. Harry Holtzman, statement for American Abstract Artists spring show, February 9–23, 1941, Riverside Museum, New York, quoted in 1970-Rembert, 47.

44. Harry Holtzman, statement for American Abstract Artists spring show, February 9–23, 1941, Riverside Museum, New York, quoted in 1970-Rembert, 47.

45. See Levin,
Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography,
197, for the words of Elizabeth Luther Cary and others.

46. George Mercer to LK, letter of January 4, 1941, PKHSC.

47. George Mercer to LK, letter of January 30, 1941, postmarked in Brookline, Massachusetts, and sent to 51 East Ninth Street in N.Y.C., PKHSC.

48. 2007-Landau, 43.

49. See James Johnson Sweeney, “Alexander Calder: Movement as a Plastic Element,”
Plus 2
, [supplement to
Architectural Forum
], February 1939, which features a cover with a Calder photographed in movement by Matter. See also Matter's photographs of Calder's mobile in Alexander Calder, “What Abstract Art Means to Me: Statements by Six American Artists,”
Museum of Modern Art Bulletin
8 (Spring 1951): 8.

50. 2007-Landau, 43, letter of November 20, 1935, Hans Hofmann to Mercedes Carles, praising her fashion work as being of a “very high standard.” She tried illustrating for
Vogue
and Saks Fifth Avenue.

51. The subject of a Matter photograph of Mercedes Carles is misidentified as Lee Krasner in 1993-Hobbs, 10, fig. 5.

52. Herbert Matter papers, Stanford University, the maquette masks the rest of Krasner's body out, and she wears goggles to protect her eyes from the strobe lights used. A list in Matter's handwriting notes: “Lee wa[l]king up stairs for N. W. Ayer.” 2007-Landau, 44. See also Jeffrey Head, “Herbert Matter 1907–1984,” A4 architects & designers diary (2005).

53. See Martica Sawin,
Surrealism in Exile and the Beginning of the New York School
(Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1995), 169–70.

54. 1987-Kamrowski.

55. George Mercer to LK, letter of January 30, 1941, postmarked in Brookline, Massachusetts, and sent to 51 East Ninth Street in N.Y.C., PKHSC.

56. George Mercer to LK, letter of January 30, 1941, postmarked in Brookline, Massachusetts, and sent to 51 East Ninth Street in N.Y.C., PKHSC.

57. See George Mercer to LK, letter of November 3, 1941, in which he implies that he got drafted, PKHSC.

58. George Mercer to LK, letter of March 9, 1941, from Fort Belvoir, Virginia, PKHSC.

59. George Mercer to LK, letter of March 9, 1941, from Fort Belvoir, Virginia, PKHSC.

60. 1979-Novak. A copy of the collection's catalogue,
The Art of Tomorrow,
published in 1939, remains in the library of the PKHSC.

61. George Mercer to LK, letter of April 7, 1941, from Washington, D.C., PKHSC.

62. George Mercer to LK, letter of April 7, 1941, from Washington, D.C., PKHSC.

63. George Mercer to LK, letter of April 7, 1941, from Washington, D.C., PKHSC.

64. George Mercer to LK, letter of April 7, 1941, from Washington, D.C., PKHSC.

65. George Mercer to LK, letter of March 25, 1941, from Fort Belvoir, Virginia, PKHSC.

66. Nina Pantuckoff [Pantuhoff] to L. Krasner, letter of March 20, 1941, from West Palm Beach, Florida.

67. Igor Pantuhoff to Lee Krasner, PKHSC.

68. George Mercer to LK, letter of April 16, 1941, from Fort Belvoir, Virginia, PKHSC.

69. George Mercer to LK, letter of April 28, 1941, from Washington, D.C., PKHSC.

70. George Mercer to LK, letter of April 28, 1941, from Washington, D.C., PKHSC.

71. George Mercer to LK, letter of April 28, 1941, from Washington, D.C., PKHSC.

72. George Mercer to LK, letter of April 28, 1941, from Washington, D.C., PKHSC.

73. George Mercer to LK, letter of May 19, 1941, from Washington, D.C., PKHSC.

74. 1939-Miller, 4.

75. 1939-Miller, 5.

76. 1939-Miller, 4.

77. George Mercer to LK, letter of May 19, 1941, from Washington, D.C., PKHSC.

78. George Mercer to LK, letter of July 7, 1941, from Fort Belvoir, Virginia, PKHSC.

79. George Mercer to LK, letter of July 17, 1941, from Fort Belvoir, Virginia, PKHSC.

80. T. S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” in
Poetry: A Magazine of Verses
, June 1915. http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html.

81. George Mercer to LK, letter of July 17, 1941, from Fort Belvoir, Virginia, PKHSC.

82. George Mercer to LK, letter of August 11, 1941, from Washington, D.C., PKHSC.

83. George Mercer to LK, letter of August 16, 1941, from Fort Belvoir, Virginia, PKHSC.

84. George Mercer to LK, letter of August 16, 1941, from Fort Belvoir, Virginia, PKHSC.

85. George Mercer to LK, letter of September 11, 1941, from Reston, Louisiana, PKHSC.

86. George Mercer to LK, letter of September 22, 1941, from Shreveport, Louisiana, PKHSC.

87. George Mercer to LK, letter of October 18, 1941, from Fort Belvoir, Virginia, PKHSC.

88. George Mercer to LK, letter of October 18, 1941, from Fort Belvoir, Virginia, PKHSC.

89. George Mercer to LK, letter of October 18, 1941, from Fort Belvoir, Virginia, PKHSC.

90. LK to the author, 1977-Rose.

91. LK to author, 1977-Rose.

92. LK to author, 1977-Rose, and LK to 1977-Bourdon, 57.

93. 1966-Rose.

94. LK to author, 1977-Rose.

95. John Graham to LK, from Primitive Arts, 54 Greenwich Avenue, New York, N.Y., 11-12-1941, AAA, roll 3771.

96. 1966-Rose.

97. For Pat Collins, see Hollister Sturges III, “The Woodstock Art Colony,”
American Art Review
, October 1999.

98. 1964-Seckler.

99. 1964-Seckler.

100. Joel Gunz, “Pioneer Artists of the Northwest: Louis Bunce,”
Rose Arts Magazine,
February/March 1990, 24.

101. 1982-Bunce.

102. 1982-Bunce.

103. 1977-Diamonstein-1.

104. LK to the author; interview of 1977. Pollock, it turns out, kept all his books hidden away in a closet.

105. 1981-Langer.

106. 1968-Wasserman.

107. 1975-Nemser-2, 6.

108. 1979-Munro, 112

109. 1958-Time.

110. 1965-Friedman, 8.

111. 1985-Potter, 64.

112. 1961-Tenke.

113. 1968-Campbell, 63.

114. 2007-Landau, 19, 45, note 40. See also 1989-Naifeh, 394–95 for Betsy Zogbaum's recollections.

115. 1985-Potter, 66.

116. JPCR, vol. 4, 225.

117. 1985-Potter, 51.

118. JPCR, vol. 4, 225–26.

119. 1985-Potter, 63.

120. JPCR, vol. 4, 226.

121. 1977-Diamonstein-1.

122. 1965-Friedman, 8.

123. 1985-Potter, 34.

124. McNeil to 1985-Potter, 34.

125. 1968-Wasserman.

126. 1998-Matter.

127. Herbert Matter to John G. Powers, letter of December 21, 1972, JPCR Archives, PKHSC.

128. Quoted in James T. Valliere, “De Kooning on Pollock,”
Partisan Review
34 (Fall 1967): 603–05.

129. 1964-Seckler.

130. Emilie S. Kilgore to Gail Levin, courtesy Barbara Rose, email of 10-4-2010.

131. 1985-Potter, 53.

132. 1985-Potter, 63.

133. 1985-Potter, 65.

134. Krasner also told me about having had Byron Browne write these lines on her studio wall. This took place before she began to see Pollock.

135. 1965-Friedman, 8.

136. 1965-Friedman, 8.

137. 1985-Potter, 65.

138. 1984-Little, II-1.

139. 1967-Greene.

140. See 1967-Parsons for her list: [Willem] de Kooning, [Jackson] Pollock, [Arshile] Gorky, [Adolph] Gottlieb, [Mark] Rothko, [James] Brooks, [Mark] Tobey, [Louis] Guglielmi, [David] Smith, [Reuben] Nakian, [Theodoros] Stamos, [William] Baziotes, [Philip] Guston, [Karl] Knaths, [Stuart] Davis, [Jack] Levine, [Ben] Shahn, [Louise] Nevelson, the Soyer Brothers [Moses, Isaac, and Raphael], [Philip] Evergood, Greene, [Giorgio] Cavallon.

141. George Mercer to LK, letter of December 25, 1941, PKHSC.

142. George Mercer to LK, letter of January 5, 1942, PKHSC.

1. George Mercer to LK, letter of January 17, 1942, PKHSC.

2. George Mercer to LK, letter of January 17, 1942, PKHSC.

3. 1964-Seckler.

4. 1983-Liss.

5.
Art Digest,
review quoted in 2006-Wilkin.

6.
Art Digest,
review quoted in 2006-Wilkin. Willem de Kooning was then showing as “William Kooning.”

7. Perle Fine to LK, letter of January or February 1942, LKP, AAA, roll 3771.

8. Edward Alden Jewell, “57th Street Gets 2 New Galleries,”
NYT,
November 25, 1941, 29. Founded in 1924 by Valentine Dudensing as Dudensing Galleries, the gallery was renamed F. Valentine Dudensing in 1926 and Valentine Gallery sometime later. The gallery closed in 1948.

9. E. A. J. [Edward Alden Jewell], “By European Moderns,”
NYT,
January 25, 1941, X9.

10. 1984-Little, II-1. Little later confused Curt Valentine's gallery in New York with the earlier Valentine Dudensing, which showed Mondrian in January 1942. He also appears to have misremembered the title of Mondrian's lecture, which he called “Toward the True Vision of Reality.”

11. ‘'Water-color Show Will Open Tuesday,”
NYT,
2002-Rembert, gives the lecture title as “A New Realism.”

12. 1957-Morris, 140.

13. The first was January 9, 1942.

14. 2002-Rembert, 71–72.

15. Piet Mondrian, “A New Realism,” included in the Abstract American Artists book in 1946.

16. 1984-Little, II-1.

17.
Time,
October 21, 1940, and Barney Josephson, quoted in 1989-Kisseloff, 470.

18. 1982-Bunce. The following quotation is also from this source.

19. Harry Holtzman, Ilya Bolotowsky, Burgoyne Diller, Fritz Glarner, Charmion Von Wiegand, and Carl Holty also felt the influence of Mondrian's style.

20. 1977-Diamonstein-1.

21. 1977-Diamonstein-1.

22. LK to author, 1977.

23. 1977-Bourdon, 57.

24. 2002-Rembert, 76.

25. Charmion Von Wiegand, quoted in 2002-Rembert, 76.

26. 2002-Rembert, 76.

27. 2002-Rembert, 76.

28. 2002-Rembert, 76.

29. Piet Mondrian quoted in Jay Bradley, “Piet Mondrian, 1872–1944: ‘Greatest Dutch Painter of Our Time,'”
Knickerbocher Weekly,
3, 51, 1944, 17.

30. See 1998-Joosten, 174, and Geoffrey Hellman (as anonymous), “Lines and Rectangles,”
The New Yorker
, no. 3, March 1, 1941, 8–9. See also Herbert Henkels, “Mondrian's Late Work: A Sketch,” in
Mondrian in New York
(Tokyo: Galerie Tokoro, 1993), 12–13.

31. See LKCR 96; also 94, 95.

32. George Mercer to LK, letter of February 23, 1942, from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, PKHSC.

33. George Mercer to LK, letter of February 23, 1942, from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, PKHSC.

34. George Mercer to LK, letter of February 23, 1942, from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, PKHSC.

35. George Mercer to LK, letter of March 16, 1942, from Fort Belvoir, Virginia, PKHSC.

36.
Art News,
quoted in 2002-Rembert, 72.

37. Edward Alden Jewell, “Abstract Artists Hold Sixth Show,”
NYT,
March 10, 1942, 24. Others included Krasner's close friend from the Hofmann School, Ray Kaiser.

38.
Art Digest,
quoted in 2002-Rembert, 72.

39. George Mercer to LK, letter of April 27, 1942, from Fort Belvoir, Virginia, PKHSC.

40. George Mercer to Lenore Krasner, letter of July 13, 1942, from Fort Belvoir, Virginia, PKHSC.

41. George Mercer to Lenore Krasner, letter of July 13, 1942, from Fort Belvoir, Virginia, PKHSC.

42. George Mercer to LK, letter of August 4, 1942, from Fort Belvoir, Virginia, PKHSC.

43. 1966-Rose.

44. 1979-Munro, 114.

45. 1979-Novak.

46. 1968-Wasserman.

47. 1937-Graham, 135. See comparison of Krasner's and Graham's drawings in 1983-Rose, 47.

48. 1937-Graham, 136.

49. 1937-Graham, 116.

50. 1979-Novak.

51. 1979-Novak; see also John Graham, “Primitive Art and Picasso,”
Magazine of Art,
vol. 30, April 1937, 236–38.

52. Carl Holty interviewed by William Agee, AAA, December 8, 1964. He also recalled: “Graham had in his entourage de Kooning and Gorky, Pollock, and that's about it,” conflicting with Krasner's assertion that she introduced Pollock to de Kooning.

53. LK quoted in 1967-du Plessix and Gray, 51.

54. George Mercer to LK, letter of June 8, 1941, from Fort Belvoir, Virginia, PKHSC. He mentions Joe Fontaine and “S.S.” besides Bultman.

55. Reuben Kadish quoted in Kisseloff,
You Must Remember This,
470.

56. 1988-Silvester, 145–46.

57. LK was aware of artists who went to the civil war in Spain. See 1972-Rose-1.

58. Café Society Uptown was on East Fifty-eighth Street, between Park and Lexington Avenues. See Barney Josephson with Terry Trilling-Josephson,
Cafe Society: The Wrong Place for the Right People
(Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2009).

59. 1997-Erenberg, 366. See also 1988-Silvester, 145–60, which has ads and descriptions of the boogie-woogie craze at the club.

60. 1997-Erenberg, 367.

61. For reports of Eleanor Roosevelt at Café Society, see David W. Stowe, “The Politics of Café Society,”
Journal of American History
, vol. 84, no. 4 (March 1998), 1403, and the Ivan Black papers in the NYPL. For the dives in Harlem, see 1977-Rose-1.

62. 1968-Wasserman.

63. 1979-Novak.

64. 1979-Novak. I first interviewed Krasner about Kandinsky in January 1971.

65. 1964-Seckler. LK in lecture, New York Studio School, December 14, 1977, AAA, reel 3774.

66. Lee Krasner to Barbara Cavaliere, interview, AAA, reel 3774, frame 286.

67. 1985-Potter, 68.

68. Matter quoted in 1985-Potter, 68.

69. “War-and-College Montage for the Pennsylvania Station,”
NYT,
September 28, 1942, 19.

70. LK to author, 1977.

71. LKCR, 93, see LK papers at AAA.

72. LKCR, 93, see LK papers at AAA.

73. LKCR, 93–96, see LK papers at AAA.

74. “War-and-College Montage for the Pennsylvania Station,”
NYT,
September 28, 1942, 19.

75. According to LKCR, 94, Ben Benn's signature appears on the lower right of a photograph of a cryptography design. For the first publication of these works since the year that they were completed, see 1978-Levin. See also War Services Project, Works Progress Administration, New York (O.P. 65-1-97-20763 W.P. 1).

76. 1972-Gruen, 230.

77. 1998-White, 80.

78. 1967-du Plessix and Gray, 49. Pollock's brother, Sande, older by three years, but next to him in birth order, changed his surname to their paternal grandfather's surname, which was replaced when LeRoy, their father, got adopted by the Pollock family.

79. 1967-du Plessix and Gray, 49.

80. 1998-White, 80.

81. 1998-White, 198.

82. For a discussion of the medical view of alcoholism prior to Prohibition, see 2005-Tracy, 226–272, and W. White, “The Rebirth of the Disease Concept of Alcoholism in the 20th Century,
Counselor,
vol. 1, no. 2, 2000, 62–66.

83. 1985-Potter, 67.

84. JPCR, vol. 4, p. 226.

85. George Mercer to LK, letter of September 6, 1942, from Fort Belvoir, Virginia, PKHSC.

86. George Mercer to LK, letter of September 4, 1942, from Fort Belvoir, Virginia, PKHSC.

87. George Mercer to LK, letter of September 4, 1942, from Fort Belvoir, Virginia, PKHSC.

88. 1981-Glueck-2, 59.

89. 1985-Potter, 66.

90. 1985-Potter, 66.

91. 1968-Wasserman.

92. John [a.k.a. Jean] Xceron was born Yiannis Xirocostasin in 1890 in Isary, Greece, and came to the United States in 1904 at the age of fourteen. In 1911–1912, he began studying at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C. Serge Trubach emigrated from the Ukraine, where he was born in 1912; he came to the United States and studied at the National Academy, where he and Krasner might have first met.

93. Pearl Bernstein, administrator, Board of Higher Education, to Audrey McMahon, general supervisor, City War Services Project, letter of October 1, 1942, AAA.

94. Pearl Bernstein letter of October 1, 1942, lists Krasner as being in charge of these artists listed as on the project, AAA.

95. Jeanne Bultman interview with the author, April 23, 2007.

96. George Mercer to LK, letter of October 26, 1942, from Fort Belvoir, Virginia, PKHSC.