Lee Krasner was one of the most influential female Abstract Expressionists. Born Lena Krassner in Brooklyn, NY, she changed her name to the more androgynous ‘Lee’, she would be competing in a male-dominated art scene. Initially known as Jackson Pollock’s wife, she was a monumentally successful artist in her own right. Known for her fluid, energetic images, Krasner produced a vast and extensive legacy of art that has influenced generations of artists. 

Krasner began her career as a mural painter. Her exposure to Post-Impressionism at the newly opened Museum of Modern Art in 1929 led to a sustained interest in modern art. In the 1930’s, she studied under Hans Hofmann, leading her to integrate influences of Cubism into her paintings. She would later cut apart her own drawings and paintings to create her collage works.

After Pollock died in a car crash in 1957, Krasner moved into his studio to paint and work through her grief. Painting through the night, her epic, vastly-scaled canvases became the most important work of her career, demonstrating a newfound freedom of expression and an increasing awareness of the emotive power held within different colors. 

By the 1960s, Krasner began work on what she called her “Primary Series.” These works, which numbered more than 60, featured bright expressive colors splashed across a surface. Of these works, Primary Series: Gold Stone are printed in monochromatic gold. These compositions lack a central focus point, reflecting Krasner’s decentralized “all-over” style of painting. The fluid gold shapes spill across the surface, evoking organic forms such as flowers or plants while remaining decisively abstract.

In 1978, Krasner was finally accorded her rightful place alongside Pollock, Rothko, Gottlieb and others in the exhibition Abstract Expressionism: The Formative Years in Ithaca, NY. The last decade of her life also brought numerous honors, awards, and publications. In 1984, Krasner had a major retrospective at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts in Texas which traveled across the United States, culminating at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

Krasner’s work is held in the permanent collections of major institutions worldwide, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Jewish Museum, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Brooklyn Museum, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; and the Tate, London.