"LEE KRASNER" par Robert HOBBS. Editions Independent Curators International & Harry N. Abrams, New York. 1999. Imprimé en Allemagne. in-4, couverture toilée anthracite sous jaquette illustrée en couleurs. 224 pages. Texte en anglais, avant-propos de Judith Olch Richards, introduction par B.H. Friedman, illustré de nombreuses reproductions photographiques noir & blanc et couleurs, in-texte et hors texte, dont 97 œuvres de Lee Krasner. Ouvrage réalisé dans le cadre de l'exposition éponyme itinérante au Los Angeles County Museum of Art du 10 Octobre 1999 au 02 Janvier 2000 ; Des Moines Art Center du 26 Février au 21 Mai 2000 ; Akron Art Museum du 10 Juin au 27 Août 2000 et au Brooklyn Museum of Art du 06 Octobre 2000 au 07 Janvier 2001.

 

"Abstract Expressionist painter Lee Krasner (1908-1984) was the only critically recognized woman artist among the founders of the New York school of painting after World War II. Although her historical importance was understood at an early date, the significance of her work - and her position as an essential figure in postwar American art - has been appreciated only in recent decades. Unlike her male colleagues, who viewed painting as a primal expression of the self, Krasner saw her art as an open-ended exploration. Her complex and original works were dense with intellectual and cultural suggestion, incorporating human and foliate forms, allusions to myth and ancient script, and deliberate ambiguity. This lavishly illustrated book, which accompanies a major traveling exhibition of Krasner's paintings, brings new insight to her remarkable achievements. Art historian Robert Hobbs takes a fresh look at her work, examining its forms and iconography to reveal the impressive originality and complexity of her creation. Beginning with Krasner's experiences at art school in the 1930s, and continuing through fifty years of her creative work, Hobbs traces the artist's development as she gradually came to terms with a maturing self. Drawing on a variety of sources, including in-depth interviews with Krasner and her friends, Hobbs reveals Krasner as one of the most remarkable figures in postwar art. With more than ninety colorplates illustrating the range of Krasner's work and a wealth of documentary photographs of the artist and her contemporaries, the book breaks new ground not only in expounding the meanings of her work, but also in examining her dialogue with a wide range of artistic, literary, and cultural voices, including those of fellow artists Jackson Pollock (her husband), Hans Hofmann, and Willem de Kooning, and of critic Harold Rosenberg. Hobbs assesses Krasner's connections with the New York Jewish intelligentsia of the 1930s and 1940s, analyzes her reactions to the Holocaust, and looks at her life long embrace of the theories of French proto-Symbolist Arthur Rimbaud. Complete with never-before-published excerpts from the diary of art chronicler and writer B. H. Friedman, a longtime associate of Krasner's, this is an essential book for anyone interested in the Abstract Expressionist Movement, and the history of women in the arts."

 

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