by Gail Levin
69. 1968-Wasserman.
70. Aristodimos Kaldis quoted in 1980-Mooradian, 156–57.
71. 1966-Rose.
72. 1967-Parsons.
73. Greta Berman, The Lost Years: Mural Painting in N.Y. City under the WPA Federal Art Project, 1935–1943 (New York: Garland, 1978), 215.
74. 1979-Munro, 108.
75. 1966-Rose.
76. Lee Krasner to Betty Smith, interview of 11-3-73 in New York City, PKHSC.
77. By this time, Anna and Joseph Krasner had given up the farm and moved into the center of Huntington to a house on Winfield near the corner of Delaware.
78. Rena Glickman (daughter of Krasner’s sister) became known as “Rusty” Kanokogi, interview with the author, 6-18-08. This other man was Jackson Pollock.
79. Rosalind Browne to Karlen Mooradian in 1966 quoted in 2000-Matossian, 278.
80. See Tina Dickey, From Hawthorne to Hofmann: Provincetown Vignettes, 1899–1945 (New York: Hollis Taggart Galleries, 2003), 68, fig. 2.
81. 1977-Ratcliff.
82. 1966-Rose.
83. 1968-Wasserman-1.
84. George Mercer to Lee Krasner and I. Pantuhoff, 44 E. Ninth St., New York, N.Y., July 29, 1939, Collection PKHSC.
85. Jean Cassou, Paintings and Drawings of Matisse (New York: 1939), Collection of the PKHSC.
86. These books are in the collection of the PKHSC.
87. Lillian Olinsey Kiesler, oral history interview, Archives of American Art, 1990. Also, author’s interview with Jeanne Bultman.
88. See Merchandise for Sale, Radios, NYT, September 10, 1939, W14.
89. George Mercer to Lee Krasner, 9-18-1939, postcard from Provincetown, PKHSC.
90. Igor Pantuhoff to Lee Krasner, postcard from Baltimore, MD, PKHSC.
91. Igor Pantuhoff to Lee Krasner, October 24, 1939, addressed to Miss Lenore Krassner, 51 East Ninth Street, New York, N.Y. from West Palm Beach, Florida, PKHSC.
92. Igor Pantuhoff to L. Krasner, 51 East Ninth Street, New York, N.Y., October 31, 1939, PKHSC.
93. Lee Krasner to the author at the time that I was preparing to lecture on her work (at her request) at New York University in connection with the show, Pollock-Krasner: A Working Relationship, in 1981. She kept a copy of a handwritten letter of April 21, 1936, that Brown wrote about a group show of abstract art at the Municipal Galleries that a number of her friends were in, LKP, AAA.
94. Arthur Rimbaud, A Season in Hell: Un Saison en Enfer, translated by Delmore Schwartz (Norfolk, Conn.: New Directions, 1939), 27.
95. Lee Krasner to the author, repeatedly over many years, referred to her relationship with Pantuhoff as a “togetherness.”
96. 1936-Barr-2, 29–30.
97. Harold Rosenberg, “The God in the Car,” Poetry, 52, no. 6, July 1938, 342, cited by 1999-Hobbs, 194, note 21 and 31–32, who speculates that LK learned about Rimbaud from Rosenberg, ignoring her earlier fascinaton with Poe. Hobbs also quotes his conversation with Lionel Abel that he believed Krasner to have been “more knowledgeable” than Rosenberg; he considered her to be Rosenberg’s “artistic mentor.”
98. An announcement of publication appeared that day in the New York Times. Price at publication was one dollar.
99. 1984-Little, II-1. He misdated their meeting to fall 1936, when LK had not yet arrived at the Hofmann School.
100. Igor Pantuhoff to LK, letter of November 23, 1939, PKHSC.
101. Igor Pantuhoff to LK, letter of February 26, 1940.
102. Igor Pantuhoff to LK, letter of March 19, 1940, from West Palm Beach, Florida. By “Brodivish,” Pantuhoff was referring to Alexey Brodovitch, the photographer and Harper’s Bazaar art director.
103. “Bullitt Is Guest in Palm Beach,” NYT, March 24, 1940, 36.
104. “Baseball Party Palm Beach Event,” NYT, March 1, 1940, 24.
105. Igor Pantuhoff to LK, postcard of March 28, 1940, PKHSC.
106. Betheny Ewald Bultmann to the author, August 7, 2007.
107. Joop Sanders to the author, interview of December 12, 2007.
108. The following account is based on the recollections of Bethany Ewald Bultman, a writer and former editor for House & Garden, who grew up in Natchez. She became fascinated with the portraits she encountered there that resembled the Russian aristocracy more than Natchez’s traditional style. Bethany Ewald Bultmann to the author, August 7, 2007, recounting the stories told to her in Natchez.
109. Oleg Pantuhoff, Sr., to Oleg Pantuhoff, Jr., letter of March 21, 1946, collection of Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kansas.
Chapter 7: Solace in Abstraction, 1940–41 (pp. 143–176)
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.
Chapter 8: A New Attachment: Life with Pollock, 1942–43 (pp. 177–196)
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.
