Lee and Me

Angry, outrageous, defiant, and courageous are some of the words that describe the American Abstract Expressionist artist Lee Krasner (1908-1984) – the subject of this very personal memoir inspired by Ruth Appelhof’s 1974 summer with her in East Hampton, Long Island. Best remembered by many as Jackson Pollock’s widow, she is regarded more by ‘art-world insiders’ as the producer of a major body of work that influenced the evolution of contemporary art – in particular, that made by women in the 20th and 21st centuries. As a scholar and a friend, Appelhof re-examines Krasner’s contributions in light of the intellectual and emotional experiences that she so candidly shared with her in weeks of interviews. In addition,  Appelhof explores Lee Krasner’s relationships with others – friends, art-world luminaries, artists, and other ‘summer sitters’ allowed into her private sanctuary – through interviews. Those recollections will offer a window into the artist’s intense and idiosyncratic personal life as well as into her contributions through the groundbreaking work she produced over the course of more than six decades.

Contents: Prefaces by Helen Harrison, Director of the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, and Barbara Rose, Art Historian and Critic; Chapter 1: Driving Ms. Krasner; Chapter 2: The Tapes: Fact or Fiction; Chapter 3: Cards on the Table; Chapter 4: Swing of the Pendulum; Chapter 5: Summer Sitters; Chapter 6: In Spite of Herself.

Published to accompany the Lee Krasner Retrospective at the Barbican Art Gallery, London, fromThursday 30 May-Sunday 1 September 2019, and at Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, from Thursday 10 October 2019-Sunday 12 January 2020, and at Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, from Friday 7 February-Sunday 10 May 2020, and at the Guggenheim Bilbao, from Friday 29 May-Sunday 6 September 2020.