Jackson Pollock
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Hofmann “school” address: McNeil. Description of class: Mercer. Lee’s outfit: Kiesler. Hofmann school still life: Eames. Cellophane and raking light: Goodman, “Hans Hofmann as a Teacher,” pp. 121–22. “Animal magnetism”; “voluptuousness”; “a unique student”; Hofmann agreeing: Kiesler, int. by Landau, Feb. 27, 1979. Lee pushy toward women: Hauck. “Hanging around”: Harold Rosenberg, q. in Friedman, p. 69. Lee’s lack of reading: CG: “Lee was not particularly well educated, and she hadn’t read much.” “This was a prestate”: Int. by Rose, July 31, 1966. “And then the minister”: LK. “It looks like”: Little. “Too bad”: Q. by Little. “A painter’s painter”: McNeil, int. by Landau, Mar. 1, 1979, q. in Landau, “LK,” p. 111. “Nobody took Lee Krasner seriously”: Mandelman.
Hofmann’s early history: Pollett, “Hans Hofmann,” p. 31. Hofmann and modernist masters; studying alongside Matisse: Pollett, “Hans Hofmann,” p. 31; Ashton, p. 81. Matisse’s school: The school was aborted after two months because the master was inundated with commissions; Kiesler. Hofmann becoming a teacher: See Goodman, “Hans Hofmann as a Teacher,” p. 120. “Cher Maître”: Holtzman. “As strong as a mountain”: Mercer. “Good German ego”: Kamrowski. Hofmann’s personality: Bultman, int. by Sandler, Jan. 6, 1968. Hofmann’s permanent mark: Goodman, “Hans Hofmann as a Teacher,” p. 120. “He brought Paris”: Matter. Flatness; inertness: Bultman, “Hans Hofmann,” pp. 4–5. Denis on flatness: Chipp, ed., p. 94. Gauguin on color: Chipp, ed., p. 61.
“Put a spot”; “activate the surface”: Q. in Landau, “LK,” p. 110, citing “Hofmann,” Brooklyn Museum Annual, 1967–68. “Equilibrium”: Bultman, int. by Sandler, Jan. 6, 1968. Twice-weekly rounds: Goodman, “Hans Hofmann as a Teacher,” p. 122. “Keep the picture”; “make the colors”: Q. by Wheeler. “Give the most”: Q. in Ashton, p. 82. “Lacked sufficient”; “had a hole”; “how to handle color”; “why colors worked”: Wheeler. “This is wrong”: Q. by McNeil. “The mythical perfect picture”: Wheeler. “Pompous, blustering”: Larry Rivers, q. in Goodman, “Hans Hofmann as a Teacher,” p. 120, citing “Hans Hofmann Students’ Dossier,” compiled by William Seitz, 1963, in MOMA Library: Rivers’s overall assessment of Hofmann was positive. “Do not make it flat!”: Q. in Goodman, “Hans Hofmann as a Teacher,” p. 123. Gibberish: Wheeler: “Someday I’m going to get up a glossary of all the bullshit things Hofmann used to talk about.” Hofmann dissolving into German: Goodman, “Hans Hofmann as a Teacher,” pp. 121–22. “Beefed up the timid hearts”: Q. in Goodman, “Hans Hofmann as a Teacher,” p. 120, citing “Hans Hofmann Students’ Dossier,” compiled by William Seitz, 1963, in MOMA Library.
“Would come up”; “what did this man say”: Q. in Nemser, p. 85. “This is so good”: Q. by LK. “A number of times”: LK. On two occasions, Kiesler saw Hofmann draw arrows on a sketch of LK’s, ostensibly to show how the composition might be improved. LK was infuriated. Lee’s drawing complimented: Kiesler, int. by Landau, Feb. 27, 1979. Hofmann tearing drawing; “this is tension”: Incident based on LK; Kiesler, int. by Landau, Feb. 27, 1979; Goodman, “Hans Hofmann as a Teacher,” p. 124. “I had a total fit”: LK: “But not in his presence. I bottled that up inside me until he had left.” “This has got”; “keep the picture”: LK, q. by Wheeler. Lee’s work at the Hofmann school: Landau, “LK,” p. 129.
Hofmann hiding his paintings; “he did not want”: Bultman: Later, some students realized his real purpose was “to avoid any critical confrontation.” Hofmann worshiping Matisse: Bultman, int. by Sandler, Jan. 6, 1968; CG, “influences of Matisse,” p. 28: Hofmann insisted on Matisse’s greatness “as he insisted on little else.” CG, p. 232: Hofmann “could teach as much about Matisse’s color as Matisse himself.” Using Matisse as model: In fact, ever since she saw her first “live Matisse, not in reproduction” at MOMA in 1930; Landau, “LK,” p. 31, citing LK, int. by Emily Wasserman, Jan. 9, 1968, p. 4. Even before arriving at the Hofmann School, LK had tried to “do something that hit from Matisse”; LK, int. by Seckler, Dec. 14, 1967. Borrowing from Matisse: See Still Life, 1938, fig. 15, in Rose, p. 24. Using pointillistic style: Landau, “LK,” p. 124. In Bathroom Door, Lee played with the Matissian subject of one space opening onto another space framed by a window, a door, a mirror, or a painting; see Landau, “LK,” p. 62.
“One of the leading”: LK, int. by Seckler, Nov. 2, 1964. “Swing like a pendulum”: LK, q. in Wasserman, “LK in Mid-Career,” p. 38. Drawings based on Picasso: Perhaps a specific drawing by Picasso in the Stieglitz collection that was on exhibition in “Cubism and Abstract Art” at MOMA in 1933 and that Stieglitz had given to the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Rose, “LK and the Origins of Abstract Expressionism,” pp. 95–96; see Rose, p. 20. Seeing Guernica; “it knocked me”; “four or five times”: LK, int. by Rose, July 31, 1966. Exhibition with Picassoid works: Exhibition sponsored by the American Abstract Artists at the Riverside Museum; LK, int. by Rose, Mar. 1972, q. in Landau, “LK,” p. 149. Description of Mondrian: See PG, p. 159. “Queasy”: LK, int. by Seckler, Dec. 14, 1967. “Very strong”; “stay with it”: Q. by LK, int. by Secker, Dec. 14, 1967. “Oh, it was beautiful”: Int. by Seckler, Dec. 14, 1967, slightly condensed. Painting with Fine: Landau, “LK,” p. 142, citing interviews with Fine, July 19, 1979, and Aug. 4, 1979. “Mondrian at that point”: Q. in Landau, “LK,” p. 141, citing LK, int. by Emily Wasserman, Jan. 9, 1968, p. 5.
Moving to East Ninth Street: While Igor was in Europe, Lee lived at 51 East Ninth Street, across the street from the apartment she later shared with Pantuhoff. “An intense”; “he was a real”; “I could hear”: Q. in Potter, p. 64. “I’m not anti-Semitic”: Q. by Rosenberg. “You son of a bitch”: Q. by Rosenberg. Rumors of abortion: Landau; Rosenberg. “Someplace out west”: LK.
Portrait painter on ocean cruises: Michael Loew, q. in Potter, p. 64. Lee attracting more attention: Bultman agrees with Rosenberg that this was a problem. Overlooking Igor: CG: “All along we noticed her work more than Igor’s.” Lee chastising Igor: Landau, “LK,” p. 35, citing Mercer, int. by Landau, Oct. 30, 1979. On one visit, Harold Rosenberg enthusiastically asked to see LK’s work without mentioning Igor’s. May immediately felt a chill in the room; Rosenberg. Dating of Pantuhoff’s departure: Igor gave her a copy of John Cassou’s Paintings and Drawings of Matisse, inscribed “To Lee with admiration from Igor”; Landau, “LK,” p. 35. The book was published in 1939 and inscribed to her that same year while Pantuhoff was still in New York. Pantuhoff’s departure: Rosenberg. Pantuhoff disappearing for at least a year: Bultman (int. by Landau, Feb. 27, 1979) told Landau (“LK,” p. 36) that Pantuhoff left New York soon after the invasion of Europe in 1939.
American Abstract Artists: Called the “Park Avenue Cubists,” led by A. E. Gallatin and George L. K. Morris, and including Holtzman, Perle Fine, and Giorgio Cavallon; see Rose, p. 40. Rejection of subject matter: See Rose, p. 40. Circle of homosexuals: CG: ”There were a lot of queers around Lee. I didn’t see them around Lee again until Jackson died, and then the queers came back.” Mercer’s Harvard years: Mercer: “Devoted as I was to Lee, we were not having an affair.” Cavallon and Greenberg, among other friends, incorrectly assumed they were having a sexual relationship. Activities with Mercer: Mercer.
Evening at Café Society: All details, except where noted, Bourdon, “LK,” p. 57. “Had a wonderful sense”: An anonymous partner, q. in Von Wiegand, “Memoir of His New York Period,” pp. 59–60, q. in Landau, p. 147. “I thought, ‘Of course”’; “some movie actor”: Q. in Bourdon, “LK,” p. 57. Rimbaud’s poem: Friedman, p. 71: When Tennessee Williams, an intimate friend of Bultman’s at the time, visited her studio and had the audacity to criticize the Rimbaud verses, Lee, infuriated, threw him out. Mercer drafted: Mercer.
26. LEGENDS
SOURCES
Books, articles, manuscripts, film, and transcripts
Diamonstein, ed., Inside New York’s Art World; Friedman, Almost a Life; Friedman, JP; Greer, The Obstacle Course; Gruen, The Party’s Over Now; McElvaine, T
he Great Depression; McKinzie, The New Deal for Art; Nemser, Art Talk; FVOC, The New Deal Art Projects; Potter, To a Violent Grave; Rose, Krasner/Pollock; Rose, LK.
James Brooks et. al., “JP: An Artists’ Symposium, Part I,” Art News, Apr. 1967; DP&G, ”Who Was JP?” Art in America, May–June 1967; Grace Glueck, “Krasner and Pollock: Scenes from a Marriage,” Art News, Dec. 1981; CG, “New York Painting Only Yesterday,” Art News, Summer 1957; James Lane, “Mélange,” Art News, Jan. 15–31, 1942; Norbert Lynton, “London Letter,” Art International, Nov. 1965; “Mrs. JP,” Time, Mar. 17, 1958; Barbara Rose, “American Great: LK,” Vogue, June 1972; Barbara Rose, “LK and the Origins of Abstract Expressionism,” Arts, Feb. 1977; Harold Rosenberg, “The Art Establishment,” Esquire, Jan. 1965; Amei Wallach, “Krasner’s Triumph,” Vogue, Nov. 1983.
Flora Lewis, “Two Paris Shows à la Pollock,” NYT, Oct. 3, 1979; Amei Wallach, “LK: Out of JP’s Shadow,” Newsday, Aug. 23, 1981.
Ellen Gross Landau, “LK: A Study of Her Early Career (1926–1949)” (Ph.D. thesis), Newark: University of Delaware, 1981; FVOC, “The Genesis of JP: 1912 to 1943” (Ph.D. thesis), Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1965.
Strokes of Genius: JP (film), Court Productions, 1984.
Fritz Bultman, int. by Irving Sandler, Jan. 6, 1968, AAA; Lillian Olaney Kiesler, int. by Ellen Landau, Feb. 27, 1979; LK, int. by Barbara Rose, July 31, 1966, AAA; LK, int. by Dorothy Seckler, Nov. 2, 1964, and Dec. 14, 1967, AAA; SLM, int. by CG, c. 1956.
Interviews
Lionel Abel; Ethel Baziotes; Leland Bell; Peter Blake; James Brooks; Fritz Bultman; Edith Bunce; Peter Busa; Herman Cherry; Deborah Daw; Violet de Laszlo; Karen Del Pilar; Ray Eames; B. H. Friedman; CG; Grace Hartigan; Harry Holtzman; Axel Horn; Harry Jackson; Reuben Kadish; Gerome Kamrowski; Lillian Olaney Kiesler; Hilton Kramer; LK; Ellen Landau; Harold Lehman; John Little; Herbert Matter; Mercedes Matter; ACM; Jason McCoy; Donald McKinney; George Mercer; John Bernard Myers; David Peretz; EFP; FLP; Milton Resnick; May Tabak Rosenberg; Nene Schardt; Patsy Southgate; Ruth Stein; Margot Stewart; Wally Strautin; Samuel Wagstaff; Steve Wheeler; Betsy Zogbaum.
NOTES
“[Graham] looked at me: Int. by Landau, Feb. 28, 1979, q. in Landau, p. 175. Penny postcard: Strokes of Genius. “I am arranging”: Q. in Landau, p. 178. Overwhelmed; “this is big-time”: Q. in Strokes of Genius. “I was astonished”: Q. in DP&G, “Who Was JP?”, p. 49. “That might have broken”: LK, int. by Seckler, Nov. 2, 1964, q. in Landau, p. 179. Canvassing Artists Union: LK. Canvassing AAA: Landau, p. 170. De Kooning shrugging shoulders: LK. Downtown Gallery: Landau, p. 179. “By the way”: Q. in Landau, p. 179. “Sure”: Q. by LK.
“I was in a rage”: Q. in DP&G, “Who Was JP?”, p. 49. “Something got into me”: Int. by Rose, July 31, 1966. “Bounded”: LK. “I found out later”: LK; see also DP&G, “Who Was JP?” p. 49; Glueck, “Krasner and Pollock,” pp. 58–59. “I knocked”: Q. in DP&G, “Who Was JP?” p. 49. “I introduced myself”: Combined from DP&G, “Who Was JP?” p. 49 and Strokes of Genius. “Actually, we had met”: LK; see also DP&G, “Who was JP?” p. 49; Diamonstein, p. 201. “Impressed”: LK. “Moved”: Q. in Glueck, “Krasner and Pollock,” pp. 58–59. “Overwhelmed”: Q. in DP&G, “Who was JP?” p. 49. “Blasted”: Q. by Busa. “Stunned”: Q. in Gruen, p. 230. “Bowled [her] over”: Q. in DP&G, “Who Was JP?” p. 49. “Felt the presence”: In Strokes of Genius. “Felt as if the floor”: Q. in DP&G, “Who Was JP?” p. 49. “Fully understood”: Rose, “LK and the Origins of Abstract Expressionism,” p. 99. “Almost died”: Q. in “Mrs. JP,” p. 64. “My God”: Q. in Wallach, “Krasner’s Triumph,” p. 502. “Oh, I’m not sure”; “don’t touch it!”: Q. in DP&G, “Who Was JP?” p. 49. “Arrangements for return visit: Glueck, “Krasner and Pollock,” pp. 58–59. Krasner remembering earlier encounter: Friedman; Rosenberg; see also B. H. Friedman, introduction to Whitechapel Gallery, p. 8, where Lee is quoted as saying she “barely remembered” Pollock from the Artists Union incident.
“The one who stepped all over”: LK; see also Diamonstein, ed., p. 201. “No guy was ever”; “an old maid”: Q. in Friedman, Almost a Life, p. 162; this novel is a fictional account of JP and Lee Krasner by a friend, in which many of the details are taken from their lives. Following Pollock’s career: See Rosenberg. McKinney (Lee’s close friend and dealer in the 1960s): “It was very clear from things she said that she knew exactly who [Jackson] was during the period from 1936 to 1941.” McKinney was also close to Mark Rothko and recalls Rothko saying that, although he wasn’t friends with JP until later, he knew him by reputation as early as 1940: “‘It was a tiny art world,’ Rothko said, ‘and it’s not as if Jackson was an unknown.’” Pollock recovering from binge: LK; ACM; see also DP&G, “Who Was JP?” p. 49. Studio malodorous: EFP. Martinson coffee cans: Wagstaff, recalling LK. Wicker chairs: Photo in possession of Kadish. Works in Pollock’s studio: Landau, p. 182: Lee also remembered seeing Birth on her first visit. Lee later told Gruen (p. 230) that “One work—the painting later titled Magic Mirror—just about stunned me.” “She found him the most beautiful”: Myers. “Met someone she liked”: Matter, in “Strokes of Genius.” “Fantastic, powerful hands”: Q. in DP&G, “Who Was JP?” p. 49. “Terribly in love”: Myers; see Ruth Stein: “Lee would never go through what she went through, never subjugate herself to another person’s art that way. She wasn’t that magnanimous. It had to be love and it had to be him.” “When they first”: Horn.
“Living together”: LK, q. in Glueck, “Krasner and Pollock,” p. 59. Weeks before Pollock showed up: LK, int. by Jeanne Wasserman, Jan. 9, 1968, cited in Landau, p. 184. “I asked him”: LK; see also Wallach, “LK,” Newsday, Sept. 23, 1981. Lee never cooking: Wallach, “LK,” Newsday, Sept. 23, 1981. LK, int. by Jeanne Wasserman, Jan. 9, 1968, q. in Landau, p. 184: JP’s comments on her work were “very generous.” Remembering earlier encounter: LK, q. in Glueck, “Krasner and Pollock,” p. 59: “When he came to my place, we both remembered we’d met several years before at an Artists Union loft party.” Going to opening together: LK, int. by Jeanne Wasserman, Jan. 9, 1968, cited in Landau, p. 184. Going out occasionally: Glueck, “Krasner and Pollock,” p. 59. “Wasn’t really serious”: Lehman. “Never went anywhere”; “if a guy interested me”: LK character, q. in Friedman, Almost a Life, p. 162.
“Like a goat”: Name withheld by request. Pneumatic breasts: Asked why several of the Pollock brothers married Jewish women, Frank Pollock said, “[Jews] tend to be intelligent and educated and big-breasted. If you listen to them, it intrigues you, and the girls are bosomy and attractive.” “I thought of Jackson”: LK. Seduction of de Kooning: LK: Sometime during the 1930s—before she was forced to execute the Dutch artist’s mural, as a result of a recently imposed Alien Rule that prevented de Kooning from executing it himself—a mutual friend had taken her to visit de Kooning’s studio, where she found him with “an attractive little girl named Julie, who, as I remember, played the violin.”
“Funny man”; “very warmly”: LK. “This is Frederick Kiesler”; “And this”: Q. by LK; see also DP&G, “Who Was JP?” p. 51. “Meshed”; “we knew”: LK character, q. in Friedman, Almost a Life, p. 162. Horn saw them together soon after they “took up with one another seriously. I had the feeling that they sought each other out because neither one of them had any alternatives.” “Psychologically embedded”: Int. by Landau, Feb. 21, 1980, q. in Landau, p. 202.
De Kooning only other American: LK: “There was Pollock, there was de Kooning, and there was me.” Artists in McMillen show: Landau, p. 184, citing McMillen catalogue. “Resembles [Stanley William] Hayter”: Lane, “Mélange,” p. 29. “Walked off”: Q. in Friedman, JP, p. 53. Between Matisse and Braque: LK, int. by Seckler, Nov. 2, 1964. “Just being in that show”: Int. by Landau, Feb. 28, 1979, q. in Landau, p. 185. Matter modeling with Lee: Blake. Herbert’s background: Herbert Matter. Matter town house: The house, which was next door to the Tudor Hotel, no longer exists. “Meeting place”: Bultman, int. by Irving Sandler, Ja
n. 6, 1968. Léger living with Matters; Calder’s Circus: Bultman, int. by Sandler, Jan. 6, 1968; Herbert Matter. Matter guests: Herbert Matter; Mercedes Matter.
“Talked a blue streak”: Mercedes Matter. “Find their voices”: LK. De Kooning’s studio: At 143 West Twenty-first Street. Introduction to de Kooning: LK. “Probably at a bar”: Q. by Little. Introduction to Greenberg: CG; Lee Krasner, however, told the authors that she introduced JP to him at a party. “In her uncouth way”: CG. His reaction may have been kinder than that of most because he considered himself an outsider like JP. Although he had attended a few Hofmann lectures with Lee and Pantuhoff, he was then an editor at Partisan Review and was, by his own account, “almost entirely out of touch with art life”; “New York Painting Only Yesterday,” p. 58.
“Absolutely aghast”: Wagstaff. “Hofmann school immaculate”: Q. by Wagstaff. “An incredible mess”: LK. “With this”: Q. by LK, q. in Landau, p. 210, citing LK, int. by Barbara Rose, n.d. “That’s the point”: Q. by LK, q. by Wagstaff. “Hoffman, being a teacher”: Q. in D&PG, “Who Was JP?” p. 51. “A silent-looking man”: Rosenberg. Betsy Zogbaum had a similar experience when she visited Lee in early 1942. “Lee and I had a dinner engagement. I went down to her studio and there was this very silent young man. He didn’t say anything. Lee and I were just chatting away. Lee never looked his way. Finally, we got up to leave, and I still didn’t know who he was. His name didn’t even come up in the conversation. I learned later that it was Jackson.”
Arloie waiting to have child: McCoy: “She put her foot down and said she wouldn’t live with Jackson when she had any children.” Jackson spending nights at Lee’s: Del Pilar: “He started to live with Lee because my mother [Arloie McCoy] had given him an ultimatum.” Rent raised; “the gouge is on”: SLM to CCP, July 1941. Jackson planning to stay: SMP to CCP, May 1941. “I had a talk”: SLM to CCP, Mar. 10, 1942. No more justification for WPA: See McElvaine, p. 320. Sande laid off: SLM to CCP, July 1941. Project rolls “shopping lists”; “employed in war production”; help from Hayden: SLM to CCP, Mar. 28, 1942. Job with Sperry Gyroscope: ACM. Brooks: Sande used tools borrowed from him to demonstrate his qualifications for the job. Sande paid to have his name legally changed a week before reporting to work in mid-May; SMP to CCP, May 5, 1942. He didn’t resign from the Project until August; FVOC, “The Genesis of JP,” p. 77.