Lee Krasner (70 page)

1. Richard Howard to the author, interview of 1-18-2007.

2. Cile Downs to the author, interview of 8-21-2007.

3. According to his widow, David Gibbs was born May 22, 1926, and died June 8, 1998. He married his last wife, Angela, in 1982. His age is stated elsewhere with several variants.

4. “Atticus among the Art Dealers,” Sunday
Times
(London), May 15, 1960, 9.

5. David Gibbs, quoted in 1995-Gabor, 86.

6. David Gibbs sold
Cool White
through the Robert Miller Gallery, which in turn sold it to the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra.

7. Bryan Robertson,
Jackson Pollock
(New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1960).

8. “Atticus among the Art Dealers,” Sunday
Times
(London), May 15, 1960, 9.

9. David Gibbs to LK, letter from London with envelope postmarked December 21, 1959, on stationery of the Guards Club. Neither Gibbs's widow (who was at least his third wife—after the mother of his children and Geraldine Stutz, from whom he was divorced after twelve years) nor his daughter from the marriage that was then breaking up wish to have Gibbs's letters quoted here. Personal letters from Gibbs to LK, PKHSE.

10. David Gibbs to LK, letter with envelope postmarked December 21, 1959.

11. “Atticus among the Art Dealers,” Sunday
Times
(London), May 15, 1960, 9.

12. David Gibbs to Clement Greenberg, letter of May 6, 1960, copy sent to LK by Gibbs, PKHSC. All of the following discussion refers to this long letter, which Gibbs's family refuses to have quoted. The Newman show opened on March 10, 1959.

13. Greenberg was accompanied by his wife, the former Janice Van Horne, then known as Jenny. They met Gibbs and his wife.

14. David Gibbs to Clement Greenberg, letter of 5-6-1960, copy sent to LK by Gibbs, PKHSC. Gibbs also told how he tried to meet art dealers Sam Kootz and Sidney Janis and how he had gone to Washington to meet Morris Louis, one of the artists whom Greenberg had promoted, giving him the second solo show at French & Company.

15. JP Papers, AAA, http://www.aaa.si.edu/collectionsonline/Polljack/container285922.htm. Gibbs's “business” correspondence is all in this online file.

16. Author's interview with Cile Downs, 8-21-2007.

17. Richard Howard to the author, interview of 1-18-2007.

18. Sanford Friedman to the author, interview of 1-17-07.

19. Sanford Friedman to the author, interview of 1-17-07.

20. 1997-Gabor, 89.

21. David Gibbs to LK, letter of May 7, 1960, Collection PKHSC.

22. “Atticus among the Art Dealers,” Sunday
Times
(London), May 15, 1960, 9.

23. Clement Greenberg to Paul Jenkins, letter of 9-1-1960, Paul Jenkins Papers, AAA.

24. 1967-Glaser.

25. Vivien Raynor, “ART; In Kent: 2 Galleries, 3 Sites, 4 Shows,”
NYT,
August 15, 1993.

26. “Atticus among the Art Dealers,” Sunday
Times
(London), May 15, 1960, 9.

27. Roberta Smith, “Frank Lloyd, Prominent Art Dealer Convicted in the '70s Rothko Scandal, Dies at 86,”
NYT,
April 8, 1998. Lloyd lost both of his parents at Auschwitz, though his non-Jewish mistress and his son survived in Austria.

28. By the early 1970s, Lloyd had obtained total control of Marlborough after Fisher, formerly a dealer of rare books, started his own gallery.

29. Howard Wise to LK, letter of February 23, 1960, LKP, AAA.

30. Howard Wise to LK, letter of August 8, 1960, LKP, AAA, reel 3771, frame 601. See also L. M. Angeleski to LK, letter of July 19, 1960, LKP, AAA.

31. See Howard Wise interview with Paul Cummings, February 2, 1971, AAA.

32. “In the Country,”
The New Yorker,
September 3, 1960, LKP, AAA, reel 3776, frame 1023. The show was on until September 15 and was the gallery's third that summer.

33. 1960-Rago, 31.

34. 1972-Rose-1.

35. 1972-Rose-1.

36. 1968-Wasserman-2, 43.

37. 1978-Howard.

38. 1999-Friedman, 18.

39. 1967-Seckler.

40. 1978-Howard; LKCR, 186 and 192, claims inexplicably and without documentation that Howard named both of these works.

41. 1978-Howard.

42. LK to 1967-Seckler.

43. Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Circles,” 1841, reprinted in Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Essays and Lectures
(New York: Library of America, 1983), 401–14.

44. LK to the author, 1980; 1978-Howard; 1967-Seckler.

45. Stuart Preston, “Art: Allusive Portraits,”
NYT,
November 19, 1960, 43.

46. Emily Genauer, “Artists Turning to Dark Myths,”
New York Herald Tribune
, November 20, 1960, 21.

47. [V.R.] Vivien Raynor, “Lee Krasner,”
Arts Magazine,
vol. 35, January 1961, 54; a hand-annotated copy of this review given to the author by LK.

48. [V.R.] Vivien Raynor, “Lee Krasner,”
Arts Magazine,
vol. 35, January 1961, 54.

49. [V.R.] Vivien Raynor, “Lee Krasner,”
Arts Magazine,
vol. 35, January 1961, 54. Jeffrey Grove, LKCR, 315, is mistaken in calling “Irving Sandler, the sole critic who reviewed both shows” “of the Umber and White series, in 1960 and 1962.”

50. I.H.S. [Irving H. Sandler], “Lee Krasner's,”
Art News,
January 1961, 15; a hand-annotated copy of this review given to the author by LK.

51. I.H.S. [Iriving H. Sandler], “Lee Krasner's,”
Art News,
January 1961.

52. 1975-Nemser-2, 6.

53. 1973-Nemser, 47.

54. Arthur Rimbaud,
A Season in Hell
(Norfolk, Conn.: New Directions, 1939), trans. by Delmore Schwartz, 15. Several writers on Krasner have cited these lines and referred to Schwartz's translation, while quoting from an unacknowledged later translation. No one has remarked, however, that to name her picture, she used a translation other than Schwartz's. The writers who failed to give the correct Schwartz translation, include LKCR, 192 for entry CR 360; 1995-Friedman, 71 (who first cited and perhaps himself translated the most repeated translation); 1979-Munro, 111; 1987-Solomon, 114; 1989-Naifeh, 390; 1993-Hobbs, 22 and 96, n. 23, and 1999-Hobbs, 37 and 194, n. 19, cites the second (bilingual) edition of Schwartz's translation and gives two different versions of these lines in his two books, only the former of which corresponds to Schwartz's second published translation of this poem. In the latter, Hobbs dates the Schwartz translation as 1932, years before it existed, and gives a page number of 27, which actually refers to the second edition, published in 1941, though the copyright page still stated 1939. On the other hand, 1983-Rose, 97, and 1995-Gabor, 58, correctly give the lines as Schwartz translated them in the 1939 edition.

55. Richard Howard to the author, October 2010, insists that he did not name this painting. Both 1979-Howard, the published version of this interview with Krasner, and the unpublished version support this assertion.

56. 1967-Seckler; despite this interview and one published by Howard quoted above, Landau in LKCR, CR360, 192, says that Howard renamed this painting, when LK named it herself.

57. David Gibbs to LK, at 147 East Seventy-second Street, New York City, telegram of March 23, 1961.

58. W. E. Johnson, “Modern North American Painting,”
Guardian
(London), May 1, 1961, 7. Clipping sent to Krasner by “Margie & Jerry Weinstock via Epsteins,” LKP, AAA.

59. Harold Rosenberg, “The Search for Jackson Pollock,”
Art News,
59, no. 10, February 1961, 58–60. Bryan Robertson,
Jackson Pollock
(New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1960).

60. 1960-Robertson, 36.

61. 1952-Rosenberg, 23.

62. 1999-Friedman, 18–19.

63. 1999-Friedman, 18–19.

64. 1960-Robertson, jacket copy.

65. 2004-Howard, 225.

66. 2004-Howard, 225, who says Ossorio suggested James, but 1999-Friedman, says Fritz Bultman made the suggestion; his wife, Jeanne, had worked for James.

67. 2004-Howard, 225. Krasner gave these garments to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's costume collection.

68. 1999-Martin, 8.

69. Bill Cunningham quoted in 1999-Martin, 13.

70. 2004-Howard, 225.

71. All information comes from documents in LKP, AAA.

72. LKCR 341 and 344. These works were illustrated as number 9 and 10 in the exhibition catalogue.

73. Anita Brookner, review of “The New New York Scene,” in
Burlington Magazine,
vol. 103, 1961, reprinted in 1990-Shapiro, 406.

74. Edward Ranzal, “Art Patron Sues Pollock's Widow,”
NYT,
June 9, 1961, 35.

75. Betsy Wittenborn Miller to the author, 1-03-2007.

76. 1961-Tenke, 37.

77. 1961-Tenke, 37.

78. Gerald Dickler to David Gibbs, LKP, AAA.

79. I.H.S. [Irving H. Sandler], “Lee Krasner's,”
Art News,
March 1962, 12–13, photocopy given to the author, annotated in LK's hand. Sandler was also reviewing for the
New York Post,
where on April 7 or 8, 1962, he repeated his own material, reiterating “explicit symbols such as fetishistic eyes have been eliminated” and “abandoned pictures now celebrate the act of painting rather than a mythological content.” See LKP, AAA, reel 3776, frame 1037.

80. Brian O'Doherty, “Krasner Works Have Sense of Activity—Four Other Abstractionists Exhibit,”
NYT,
3-14-1962. Vivien Raynor, “Lee Krasner,”
Arts Magazine,
May–June 1962, 100–101.

81. Gerald Dickler to David Gibbs, letter of September 14, 1962, LKP, AAA.

82. Sanford Friedman to David Gibbs, letter of January 22, 1963, PKHSC.

83. Quoted by 1999-Friedman, 20, recorded in his journal January 29, 1963.

84. Sanford Friedman to David Gibbs, now of the Marlborough Gallery, February 3, 1963, PKHSC.

85. Sanford Friedman to David Gibbs, now of the Marlborough Gallery, February 3, 1963, PKHSC.

86. Sanford Friedman for LK to David Gibbs, now of the Marlborough Gallery, February 20, 1963, PKHSC.

87. Howard Wise to LK, Letter of 7-15-1963, LKP, AAA, confirms this.

88. Ronald Stein to David Gibbs, letter of April 19, 1963, copy in LKP, AAA, roll 3771.

89. 1963-Zinsser, 9, refers to “The Springs,” but locals say “Springs,” as I have elsewhere.

90. 1963-Zinsser, 9.

91. 1963-Zinsser, 9.

92. See 2009-Valliere and some of his interviews in 2000-Harrison, ed. My own research and observations do not always concur with Valliere's assertions. For example, he claims Krasner sold her nephew the house adjoining hers in Springs, when, in fact, it was a wedding gift, as confirmed by Frances Patiky Stein.

93. See LKCR, 208, CR 390–400.

94. 1964-Seckler.

95. 1979-Novak.

96. 1979-Novak. For the text of this prayer, see chapter 1.

97. 1979-Novak.

98. 1981-Langer.

99. 1979-Munro, 105. LK told this story to more than one interviewer, but this is the most complete version recorded.

100. Barnett Newman quoted online at: http://www.cca.qc.ca/en/collection/922-a-model-for-a-synagogue-by-barnett-newman.

101. Barbara Rose to the author, interview of 10-19-2006.

102. Barbara Rose,
American Art Since 1900
(New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Publishers, Inc., 1967). Barbara Rose, “American Great: Lee Krasner,”
Vogue,
vol. 159, June 1972, 118–21, 154. Barbara Rose, “The Best Game Is the End Game,”
New York,
vol. 6, April 30, 1973, 92.

103. Terence Netter to the author, 1-16-2009.

104. Terence Netter to the author, 1-16-2009.

105. Terence Netter quoted by M. G. Lord, “Lee Krasner, Before and After the Ball Was Over,”
NYT,
August 27, 1995.

1. As late as 1981, organizations called Double X and Arts Coalition for Equality demonstrated against LACMA and Tuchman specifically by showing up at the opening of a show called “Seventeen Artists of the Sixties” wearing Tuchman masks as a protest against his failure to include any women or minority artists. See 2007-Levin, 119.

2. 1965-Newman, 262-63.

3. 1965-Newman, 263.

4. 1975-Nemser-2, 6.

5. Lee Krasner, page of handwritten notes headed “Forest No. II (Collage) 1954 1965),” LKP, AAA, roll 3774, frame 703.

6. Rena (Rusty) Seymour Kanokogi to the author, interview of 6-18-2008.

7. See LKCR, 219 for a chronicle of these name changes.

8. Other twentieth-century American artists loved Melville, notably Edward Hopper, who read everything Melville wrote during the summer of 1941 and named a painting,
The Lee Shore,
after a chapter in
Moby-Dick.

9. This history is from correspondence and photographs with canceled titles in LK's papers. For a list of all of these titles and their history, see LKCR, numbers 412 through 418.

10. Sanford Friedman to the author, interview of 1-17-2007.

11. Terence Netter to the author, interview of 1-16-2009, referring to a time he was working at the church, circa 1966.

12. “Close-Up/A Jesuit Makes a ‘Painful, Purifying' Decision,”
Life,
October 25, 1968, 46.

13. Terence Netter to the author, interview of 1-16-2009.

14. These lectures took place in 1968.

15. See Brad Gooch,
City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O'Hara
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993), 341.

16. 1965-Robertson, 3.

17. 1965-Robertson, 4.

18. Clement Greenberg interviewed by Ruth Ann Appelhof, on May 29, 1975. Ruth Ann Appelhof, “Lee Krasner: The Swing of the Pendulum,” M.A. thesis, Syracuse University, 1975, 4.

19. 1965-Friedman, 5, continues incorrectly “She was born Lenore.” Though she was born “Lena,” LK evidently chose not to correct this error.

20. Tejas Englesmith to the author, 3-24-2010.

21. “Pollock,” Sunday
Times
(London), 9-19-1965, LKP, AAA, roll 3776, frame 1043.

22. “Pollock,” Sunday
Times
(London), 9-19-1965, LKP, AAA, roll 3776, frame 1043.

23. “Pollock,” Sunday
Times
(London), 9-19-1965, LKP, AAA, roll 3776, frame 1043.

24. “Pollock,” Sunday
Times
(London), 9-19-1965, LKP, AAA, roll 3776, frame 1043.

25. “Pollock,” Sunday
Times
(London), 9-19-1965, LKP, AAA, roll 3776, frame 1043.

26. “Pollock,” Sunday
Times
(London), 9-19-1965, LKP, AAA, roll 3776, frame 1043; a paraphrase, not a direct quotation, appears in the article.

27. “Pollock,” Sunday
Times
(London), 9-19-1965, LKP, AAA, roll 3776, frame 1043.

28. “Lee Krasner,”
Evening Standard,
September 22, 1965, 6.

29. “Lee Krasner,”
Evening Standard,
September 22, 1965, 6.

30. “The Abstract Art of Lee Krasner,”
Times
(London), 9-22-1965, LKP, AAA, reel 3776, frame 1045.

31. Nigel Gosling, “A Portent from Brooklyn,”
Observer
(London), September 26, 1969.

32. John Russell, “Germany's Other Man of Iron,” Sunday
Times
(London), October 3, 1965, the comments on Krasner's show followed a review of Max Beckmann.

33. Sheldon Williams, “London Retrospective for Abstract Pioneer,”
Herald Tribune Paris Edition,
October 4, 1965.

34. See Gosling, “A Portent from Brooklyn,”
Observer,
September 26, 1965, and an anonymous review in
The Listener,
October 14, 1965.

35. Norbert Lynton, “London Letter,”
Art International,
vol. 9, no. 8, November 20, 1965, 32.

36. 1965-Forge.

37. Wedding notice of David Gibbs to Geraldine Stutz,
Time,
Friday, September 24, 1965. Note that his age cited here does not reconcile with that given me by his widow, Angela Gibbs. See birth date of May 22, 1926, cited above. Stutz described in Shirley Clurman, “Gerry Stutz Is Hardly Just Window Dressing at Bendel's—She Owns the Store,”
People,
vol. 14, no. 15, October 13, 1980, http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20077629,00.html.

38. “Geraldine Stutz and David Gibbs,”
New York,
August 31, 1970. Clurman lists price Stutz paid for Henri Bendel.

39. 1975-Nemser-1, 98.

40. Nancy Schwartz to the author, 1-19-2010.

41. Igor Pantuhoff to Lee Krasner, letter of May 1965, LKP, AAA, May 1965, roll 3771.

42. Grace Glueck, “Patron,”
NYT,
May 16, 1965, X21.

43. 1986-Weld, 401.

44. 1999-Friedman, 20.

45. The other five were the painter Morton Kaish, the printmakers Mark Freeman, Gerson Leiber, Louis Schanker, and Aubrey Schwartz. The show was open from August 23 to September 7, 1966.

46. Francis V. O'Connor to the author, 3-31-2010.

47. 1977-Diamonstein-1.

48. Joy Williams, “Krasner Show Opens University Art Gallery,”
Birmingham News
, February 16, 1967, and AAA, Krasner Papers, reel 3776, frame 1004, clipping from
Crimson-White,
the school paper. Donald McKinney to the author, 1-19-2010.

49. LK quoted in Doris P. Flora, “Artist Would Be ‘Back-Tracking,'”
Tuscaloosa News,
February 15, 1967, AAA, LK papers, roll 3776, frame 1050.

50. LK quoted in Doris P. Flora, “Artist Would Be ‘Back-Tracking,'”
Tuscaloosa News,
February 15, 1967, AAA, LK papers, roll 3776, frame 1050-A.

51. Lee Krasner to Karen Hughes, “It's Harder for Women,”
Crimson-White
, February 20, 1967.

52. LK quoted in William Arnett, Alvia Wardlaw, et al.,
The Quilts of Gee's Bend: Masterpieces from a Lost Place
(New York: Tinwood Books, 2002), 54–55.

53. “Pollock Revisited,”
Time,
April 14, 1967.

54. See 1998-Karmel, for reprints of all of these 1967 publications.

55. Harold Rosenberg, The Art World (The Art Galleries), “The Mythic Act,”
The New Yorker,
May 6, 1967, 162, reprinted in Harold Rosenberg,
Art Works and Packages
(New York: Horizon Press, 1969), 63, 67.

56. 1967-Nation.

57. 1967-Nation.

58. Donald McKinney to the author, 1-19-2010.

59. Grace Glueck, “Man in the News; Collections Connoisseur: William Slattery Lieberman,”
NYT,
January 21, 1987.

60. Grace Glueck, “The Met Makes Room for the 20th Century,”
NYT,
September 18, 1983, LKP, roll 3777, frame 9.

61. Grace Hartigan to Lee Krasner, letter of 10-20-79, AAA, roll 3773, frame 379.

62. Ray “Buddha” Kaiser Eames to Lee Krasner, AAA, roll 3774, frames 713 and 714, and roll 3773, frame 215, undated letter of February 1979, sent with a heart drawing, “for Valentine's Day.” Krasner introduced the author to Buddha Eames on one of her visits to New York.

63. Harold Rosenberg, “The Art World: Big,”
The New Yorker,
August 26, 1967, 96.

64. Harold Rosenberg, “The Art Establishment,”
Esquire,
64, January 1965, 39.

65. 1978-Cavaliere.

66. 1968-Wasserman-2, 43.

67. Baker,
Time,
1973. LK wrote out this recollection, which is found in her papers, LKP, AAA, roll 3774, frame 701.

68. 1968-Wasserman-2, 38.

69. 1968-Campbell, 43. This statement exists in LK's hand in her papers, LKP, AAA, roll 3774, frame 703.

70. 1968-Campbell, 43.

71. David Biale,
Eros and the Jews: From Biblical Israel to Contemporary America
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 161.

72. 1968-Campbell, 64.

73. Grace Glueck, “And Mr. Kenneth Does Her Hair,”
NYT,
March 17, 1968, D34. Mr. Kenneth, LK's upscale hairdresser, was also featured in Barbara Rose's film,
Lee Krasner: The Long View.
See also 2007-Levin, 167–68 and Grace Glueck, “The Ladies Flex Their Brushes,”
NYT,
May 30, 1971, D20.

74. “Lee Krasner,”
NYT,
March 16, 1968.

75. Max Kozloff, “Art,”
The Nation,
March 25, 1968.

76. Cindy Nemser, “Lee Krasner,”
Arts Magazine,
April 1968, 57.

77. Bill King quoted in 1993-Whipple, 226–27.

78. Bill King quoted in 1993-Whipple, 227.

79. Bill King to the author, 3-21-2010 and earlier in conversation.

80. LKCR, number 434, is incorrectly dated 1966, which is impossible, as Patiky's eyewitness photographs of 1969 document.

81. Mark Patiky to the author, 1-21-2010.

82. 1979-Novak.

83. [John Gruen, unsigned review labeled in LK's hand], “Frank Auerbach and Lee Krasner,” October 13, 1969. LKP, AAA, reel 3776, frame 1073-A.

84. L.C., “Lee Krasner,”
Art News,
October 1969, 17.

85. Alfred Frankenstein, “Mrs. Pollock's Fine Show,”
San Francisco Chronicle,
November 19, 1969.