The Springs
It's interesting that two biographies of women Abstract Expressionists should be published concurrently. But Joan Mitchell was considered part of the second generation of this art movement, while Lee Krasner was of the first generation, also known as the New York painters because for the first time, the center of the art world was no longer in Europe.
Lee Krasner's obstacles were also her inspirations: Her parents were Russian Jews, looked down upon even by other immigrant groups. (radicals) She rebelled against her role as a Jewish woman from childhood, when she was forced to sit in a different part of the synagogue than did the men. She hated learning Hebrew, yet she later painted her canvases right to left, as one reads Hebrew. And her affinity for illuminated manuscripts led to paintings like "Uncial" (1967), or more indirectly to her Little Image paintings, with its calligraphic brush marks. Her life-long love of nature sprang from her upbringing on rural Long Island, although she said, "There are elements of nature in my work, but not in the sense of birds and trees and water...I might mean energy, motion, everything that's happening in and around me."
Krasner's biggest obstacle and greatest inspiration was her husband, Jackson Pollock. While she had been a modernist painter long before he was (she studied with Hans Hoffman and Piet Mondrian, and tried her hand at Surrealism while Pollock was still painting in the realistic style of his mentor, Thomas Hart Benton), Lee Krasner would forever be considered under the influence of her more famous husband. "I couldn't run out and do a one-woman job on the sexist aspects of the art world, continue my painting and stay in the role I was in as Mrs. Pollock...What I considered important is that I was able to work...I made my decisions."
Gail Levin details the almost super-human effort Krasner exerted to promote the self-destructive Pollock's career, while evolving through her own painting process. The second-wave feminists of the 1970s finally saw to it that Krasner got the recognition she deserved as a founding member of the New York school of painters.
Untitled, 1961
Because I'm reading Patricia Alber's new book, Joan Mitchell: Lady Painter, that lady is my current spotlight artist.
As you look at Mitchell's painting on the right, keep in mind that this artist was a nationally ranked competitive ice-skater in her youth. It's intriguing to think that the looping lines and cool colors in Untitled and other works were inspired by memories of gliding on the ice, although Mitchell denied the connection.
It's also fascinating to read about the role Mitchell's synesthesia played in her work. This neurological condition, described by Albers as a "sensory cross-wiring in the brain...in which a stimulus to one of the senses triggers perceptions through another sense", turned out to be an invaluable resource for an artist. For Mitchell, every letter of the alphabet was a different color, as was every emotion, every smell, everything.
Joan Mitchell was a complicated woman. She was brought up in a privileged environment, but chose to portray herself as a penniless artist. She resisted being labelled an Abstract Expressionist, even though the man she considered her artistic father, William de Kooning, was a charter member of that movement. Mitchell also resisted friendships with Grace Hartigan and Helen Frankenthaler, the other "lady painters" in her circle, preferring to be thought of as one of the guys.
Reading biographies can be a dry experience, but Albers' voice sings throughout this book with a fluidity comparable to Mitchell's calligraphic brushstrokes.
There were expanded opportunities for women artists-- provided that one was from a well-off family--after the Renaissance. (And provided that one's father was an open-minded Humanist who provided tutors to educate his daughters, or was an artist who taught them himself.)
This was particularly true in Bologna, a "college town", proud of its women of achievement. When her father became incapacitated by gout and could no longer paint, Elisabetta supported her family. While most considered her a prodigy, some questioned whether she produced so many paintings, so quickly, by herself. To put the issue to rest, Sirani performed for her admirers, completing a painting in a single day. Small wonder that she died of an ulcer at 25!
During her short career, Elisabetta produced a minimum of 170 paintings. Although she focused on religious subjects and portraits, her masterpiece was "Porcia Wounding Her Thigh", an episode from the history of Julius Caeser and Brutus. It's worth considering how her work might have developed if she hadn't been forced to work so fast and focus on the most commercially successful subject matter. And if she had lived a full life...
In 1994, the U.S. Postal Service chose Sirani's "Virgin and Child" (at right) as its traditional Christmas stamp. She was the first, and to date the only, historical woman artist whose work has ever been chosen.
