Lee Krasner: Mural Studies

A few years prior, in 1937, Krasner was assigned to finish a mural begun by Willem de Kooning after the artist was dismissed from the WPA project due to his lack of U.S. citizenship. Though Krasner did not complete the mural, her experience on the project influenced her own designs for the space depicted in these studies from 1940, specifically de Kooning’s interest in both Fernand Léger and the British Abstractionist, Ben Nicholson.

As well as giving a rare insight into a year of fundamental stylistic transition toward gestural abstraction, Krasner’s gouaches are historically significant in their documentation of an era of unprecedented government patronage of the arts. The WPA was created in 1935 to provide economic relief to U.S. citizens affected by the Great Depression. Until its closure in 1942, the WPA, in various iterations, commissioned tens of thousands of public artworks by artists, such as Ilya Bolotowsky’s mural for The Health Building, New York World’s Fair (1938-9) and Arshile Gorky’s Aviation murals for the Administration Building, Newark Airport (1939-40.)

Mural Studies is the second solo exhibition organized in conjunction with the Pollock-Krasner Foundation since Kasmin announced representation of the Estate in November 2016.