Willem de Kooning

Willem De Kooning b1904-1997
Dutch born painter who became an American citizen in 1961. Was one of the major figures of the Abstract Expressionist movement. Early work was conservative but in 1929 he met Arshille Gorky in New York and became a close friend of his and began to associate with his circle of avant-garde friends. He started experimenting in the 30's and 40's and began to paint more vigorously reminiscent of his later work.
His work maintained a certain amount of figuration where other artist associated with the movement were more abstract. His most controversial work, and possibly what he is best known for was the 'Woman Series' which he first exhibited in 1953. He gained the support if Harrold Rosenberg, a New York critic, and with his support Woman I has become one of the most reproduced paintings.

He has been hugely influential on younger artist for his bright and bold use of colour and paint. He was married to Elaine De Kooning in 1943, and he continued to paint well into his eighties until he was eventually beaten by Alzheimers diesease.

Hans Namuth Photographs of Jackson Pollock

Hans Namuth's now iconic images have two roles. Produced in 1951 Namuth hired a house in Springs, the small area where Pollock and his wife Lee Krasner were living at he time. He photographed Pollock at is work, painting his huge canvasses. With the passing of time, these photographs have come to iconoclise the image of Pollock and the construction of the artist, the myth of the 'Mad genius' which ahs been attributed to artist as far back as Michelangelo.

What namuth has captured is an image of 'The Artist' not exclusively Jackson Pollock. He is the father of the Abstract expressionist movement, when we think of either him or the moevment we visualise it through the photographs that Namuth captured.

Elaine de Kooning

b. 1918-1989. Born Elaine Mari Fried, in Brookly New York. Her youthful artistic talents were encouraged by her mother who taught her to draw what she saw, and also took her on visits to museums. She studied briefly at the Leonardo da Vinci Art School, but later enrolled at the American Art School.

She began to study under Willem De Kooning in 1938, and they married in 1943. She made a name for herself as an artist and critic working for Art NEws and it was here where she initiated her husbands rise to fame. There are strong similarities between her work and that of her husband, and it is interesting to compare the influence of each on the other. She was typically subordinated in relation to her husband who became regarded as one of the leading figures of the Abstract Expressionist movement. They had a terbulent relationship and she died of lung cancer caused trhough heavy smoking.

Grace Hartigan

American born in 1922. She was a lively participant of the New York School of Abstract Expressionists in New York City.

She taught her self to draw and read whilst convalessing from pneumonia when she was 6, it would be some 20 years or so before she took proper drawing classes. She worked as a drafts(wo)man whilst living in Newark, New Jersey in the 1940's, after the birth of her first child. She moved to New York City and became associated with many of the key painters of the time, notably being deeply inspired by Jackson Pollock. She was also involved with and had relationships with writers and poets of the time, many of whom inspired a later body of work.

In 1960 she invented a new medium, Water colour collage, using colour washes to create form and then tearing and collaging the pices together again.

She is currently living and working in Baltimore, Maryland, where she is director of graduate studies at the Maryland Institute College of Art.

Image: 'Billboard', 1957, Oil on Canvas

Lee Krasner

Born 1908 in Brookly (NY) and she died in 1984 in New York. Lee Krasner (born Lena but preferred to be called Lenore and later Lee) is known as the wife of Action Painter Jackson Pollock. This marriage has stood in the way of a true study of her work, always being associated with the ouvre that is Pollock. What is interesting is that when a retrospective study of Pollock is being made Lee Krasner only appears as 'His wife'. As in the pictures of Hans Numuth, she is seen as the mystery woman, just being there for her husband. She could be anybody, she is depersonalized to being a mere wife to the Pollock legend.

What is important in making a true study of her work is to consider the work of both of them. Since his death in 1956, Krasner and her painting has been deleted from the biography of Pollock. She contributes to the legend only confirming that he was married.

She studied at the Womens Art School at the Cooper Union, in New York. She studied under the eye of Hans Hoffman, who taught the principle of Cubism, this had a last effect on Krasner directing her work through Neo-Cubism. Her working method of cutting up her own drawings and paintings to make collages has resulted in few works surviving. Her critical eye was key to the development of Pollocks own work.

Like a lot of female artists working in this era, Krasner's work has been dubbed as being based on her femininity, and iconographically of the female genitals. Although this is possible, and the images can be interpreted in this way, it is a new reading, and possibly subconciously this comes across it is not the driving element in her work.

She enjoys mark making and colour, and althoug these are iconographically female in their execution, her training with Hans Hoffman and the association with the Abstract Expressionists, suggests that her primary concern was with painting and its technicalities. This does not mean that we cannot read into her work, but we have to be objective.

In their gravestone monuments, Jackson Pollock gets the big stone, and Lee Krasner gets the small stone, sybolic of their lives, and current debate, only through acurate study of the two simultaneously can this error be corrected.

We will never know wether the legend of Pollock, established before his death, would have strengthened had he not died, and how this would have affected Krasners work.

Helen Frankenthaler

American born in 1928. She began to paint durin the Abstract Expressionism movement but later developed into Colour Field Painting. Under the guidance of Paul Feeley she received a grounding in Cubism but she had a stronger interest in the linear freedom of Arshile Gorky and the colour experimentations and theories of Wassily Kandinsky.

She attended Bennington College, Vermont, a liberal arts college in 1945-49. In the summer of 1950 she studied with Hans Hoffman. Her first one person show was in late 1951 in New York.

Jackson Pollock proved to be an enoumous stimulus to her work, more a catalyst to her development rather than developing in the same vein. She began to experiment with his drip painting style, and she started to thin the paint to soak into the canvas rather than building up layers of paint on the surface. This approach has allowed her to create complex shapes and forms.

She is married to fellow artist Robert Motherwell.

Image: 'Gateway' 1988, etching aquatint. 39"x88"