Lee Krasner’s five works bring an inscrutable abstract paintings show to life
By Theo Douglas

“UNTITLED” by LEE KRASNER

Few forms of art can be as elusive as abstract painting. The true meaning and purpose of a given work so often escapes the average eye. This is somewhat the case at the University Art Museum’s ultimately rewarding “Grand Gestures: The Gordon F. Hampton Collection,” a challenging examination of abstract art drawn from the collection of the late Los Angeles attorney. But then there’s also Lee Krasner, whose five works here manage to appear much more numerous and transparent.

Other famous names are present, too: David Hockney, Richard Diebenkorn, Robert Rauschenberg. But somehow—and this is a feat—it’s Krasner’s five works which stand out from 30 other pieces and direct the entire show, pulling you room to room. Krasner, who died in 1984, was the wife of storied abstract painter Jackson Pollock, and she’s perhaps most famously remembered for remaining in his shadow. The other version of her life says she didn’t, that she continued reinventing herself and her way of creating throughout her life. And her five pieces here—three painted after Pollock’s death in a 1956 car accident—validate that story.

“Lee Krasner learned slowly. She always did her homework, adored the teacher, and never forgot a thing. Everyone knew a girl like that back in fourth grade. It has made her easy to respect but difficult to like,” art critic John Haber wrote six years ago, reviewing a Brooklyn Museum Krasner retrospective. And parts of what he said in 2001 come through in Krasner’s works here—with one exception: at first glance, it’s difficult to understand almost any of the paintings here. Abstract paintings make you work at that—and in this case, you should.

Start with something easy, like Hockney’s etching My Pool and Terrace, where giant green banana people walk along a blue deck next to a red-tiled pool. You get that. Then, turn to Rauschenberg’s Pre-Morocco, a series of black-and-white photo snippets of a wash basin, urinals, a potted plant, a cafe table—all printed-over with a maddening series of stripes and polka-dots. What is it? What does it mean? Exactly.

Then, go back to the beginning of the show for Krasner’s Stretched Yellow, completed the year before Pollock died. An oil painting with huge gouges of black paper collaged in, it’s mostly not yellow; it’s mostly a dim, dreary series of blacks and browns with a glint of yellow at top dead center. It’s her most unfocused work here—but you sense something more, as if that seeming lack of focus, the use of dark colors and loose forms, is very, very deliberate—as Haber suggested.

Inspecting it, your eye moves left to another square canvas of whirled dark brown shapes against white. It’s another Krasner: 1961’s What Beast Must I Adore. By 1961 (and certainly by the year 2000) everyone knew what beast that was. Venture up close, and Beast changes. The loose whirls of brown paint strokes tighten up, becoming almost mathematically precise. They resemble calligraphy, in fact—and while no beast appears, they stand in marked contrast to works like Al Held’s nearby Untitled, with its great muddy gouts of horizontal color. Next to this, Beast has definite meaning, even if you can’t figure out what that is.

Look down a bit of a hallway in the museum layout, and a small canvas with precisely-drawn abstract shapes in red, teal, and chartreuse draws you in. It’s Krasner’s earliest work here, her Untitled, done over 1938-1939—years before she was drawn into Pollock’s orbit. Again, while you can’t figure out what it is, you know there’s something at work here. Her use of color is still fresh (it must have been shocking in 1939, when a pair of red shoes was still considered outlandish), and again her tightly-wound precision plays off nicely against more playful works like Gillian Ayers’s Full Fathom Five.

Finish your tour in the main room with Krasner’s gothy Gothic Frieze, its dark spikes tinged in greens, yellows, maroons; and her still-controlled but colorful Cornucopia (from 1958). Here, she actually uses pink, and its brief appearances speak volumes about Al Held’s expansive Triangle Circle or his rolling Barnhills. What was she trying to say? It must have been something.

GRAND GESTURES: THE GORDON F. HAMPTON COLLECTION UNIVERSITY ART MUSEUM | 1250 BELLFLOWER BLVD | LONG BEACH 90840 | 562.985.5761 | CSULB.EDU/ORG/UAM | OPEN TUES-SUN NOON-5 PM; THURS NOON-8 PM | FREE | THROUGH AUG 12