Skip to main content
Birth is one of a series of aggressively painted canvases completed soon after Pollock’s death. The paintings in the series share black lines, pink palettes, and Pablo Picasso-influenced female forms. Birth is a large vertical painting containing a strong visceral quality emblematic of Krasner’s mental state at the time; it exudes a palpable sense of distress. The large loose strokes that form the contours of ambiguous body parts, reminiscent of Willem de Kooning, appear to have been painted with tremendous speed. Krasner scratched into the surface of the paint in seemingly erratic lines in the upper right of the canvas. The scratched lines, along with the heavy black lines and drips, impart a tortured quality to the painted surface. The color palette is a jarring contrast of fleshy pinks and deep black and red. Round shapes at the top of the painting suggest mask-like faces and haunting eyes.
By titling the canvas Birth, Krasner directly referenced a key work by Pollock with the same title. [2] Done during 1938–1941, it preceded their marriage and resembles Krasner’s version in its verticality, curvaceous shapes, and dark outlines. Birth—the delivery of a child—is often a bloody and painful experience that results from sexual intercourse. In his monograph on the artist, Robert Hobbs described Krasner’s painting: “Birth is a landscape of bodies: large, pendulous breasts and swelling shapes are indicative of pregnancy, but in a negative context, for the forms are dismembered, strewn across the canvas. … Whatever her intent, the work associates birth with violence and with the breakup of something that had once been complete and whole.” [3]
Krasner, articulate in interviews, nevertheless, like so many artists, saw her art as her mouthpiece: “The serious artist is a highly sensitive, intellectual, and aware human being. … The painter’s way of expressing himself is through painting not through verbal ideas, but that doesn’t preclude the presence of highly intellectual concepts.” [4] Through the manipulation of paint, Krasner created this image communicating her mental and bodily distress during a period of dramatic personal change. The painting serves as autobiographical evidence of her trauma. Through the magic of abstraction and her ability as an artist, Krasner was able to express her true feelings.
Notes:
[1] Krasner quoted in Arthur Danto, “Lee Krasner: A Retrospective,” The Nation (February 23, 1958), 219–220.
[2] Ellen G. Landau, Lee Krasner: A Catalogue Raisonné (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1995), 157.
[2] Robert Carleton Hobbs, Lee Krasner (New York: Abbeville Press, 1993), 66.
[3] Krasner quoted in Bruce Glaser, “Jackson Pollock: An Interview with Lee Krasner,” Arts Magazine (April 1967), 37.
ProvenanceBefore 1983
Robert Miller Gallery, New York, NY.
From 1983
Barbara B. Millhouse, New York, NY, purchased from gallery 12/1983. [1]
Notes:
[1] Old cataloging information (see Object File).
Exhibition History1995
Lee Krasner: The Nature of the Body, Works from 1933-1984
Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, NY (8/12/1995-10/15/1995)
1999-2001
Lee Krasner: Palingensis
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA (10/10/1999-1/2/2000)
Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa (2/26/2000-5/21/2000)
Akron Art Museum, Akron, Ohio (6/10/2000-8/27/2000)
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY (10/6/2000-1/7/2001)
2007
Abstract/Object
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (2/27/2007-6/17/2007)
2013
Things Wondrous & Humble
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (8/8/2013-12/8/2013)
2014-2015
Love & Loss
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (10/11/2014-12/13/2015)
2019-2020
Lee Krasner: Living Colour
Barbican Centre: May 30 - Septemner 1, 2019
Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt: October 11, 2019 - January 12, 2020
Zentrum Paul Klee: February 7 - May 10, 2020
Guggenheim Bilbao: May 29 - September 6, 2020
2021
The Voyage of Life: Art, Allegory, and Community Response
Reynolda House Museum of American Art (7/16/2021 - 12/12/2021)
Published ReferencesHobbs, Robert. Lee Krasner. (New York: Abbeville Press, 1993).
Hobbs, Robert; Friedman, B. H. (Introduction by). Lee Krasner. (New York: Independent Curators International, 1999).
Strassfield, Christina and Lee Krasner Lee Krasner: The Nature of the Body, Works from 1938-1984. (East Hampton, New York: Guild Hall Museum, 1995.
Wagner, Anne. Three Artists (Three Women): Modernism in the Art of Hesse, Krasner and O'Keeffe. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996).
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Reynolda: Her Muses, Her Stories, with contributions by Martha R. Severens and David Park Curry (Winston-Salem, N.C.: Reynolda House Museum of American Art affiliated with Wake Forest University, 2017). pg 250, 251
Lee Krasner: Living Colour, edited by Eleanor Nairne, (London: Thames & Hudson, 2019). pg 114.
DepartmentAmerican Art
Birth
Artist
Lee Krasner
(1908 - 1984)
Date1956
Mediumoil on canvas
DimensionsFrame: 84 5/16 x 49 7/8 in. (214.2 x 126.7 cm)
Canvas: 83 x 48 in. (210.8 x 121.9 cm)
SignedLee Krasner '56
Credit LineGift of Barbara B. Millhouse
Copyright© 2021 The Pollock-Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Object number2014.1.1
DescriptionAs the wife and artistic partner of the mythic Abstract Expressionist Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner waged many battles—against critics, her husband’s alcoholism, and her own demons. “I was not the average woman married to the average painter. I was married to Jackson Pollock. The context is bigger and even if I was not personally dominated by Pollock, the whole art world was.” [1] In the summer of 1956, while Krasner was in Europe, Pollock killed himself and a female passenger while driving drunk a mile from his home in Springs on eastern Long Island. Another woman, Ruth Klugman, survived; she and the artist had been having an affair. Birth is one of a series of aggressively painted canvases completed soon after Pollock’s death. The paintings in the series share black lines, pink palettes, and Pablo Picasso-influenced female forms. Birth is a large vertical painting containing a strong visceral quality emblematic of Krasner’s mental state at the time; it exudes a palpable sense of distress. The large loose strokes that form the contours of ambiguous body parts, reminiscent of Willem de Kooning, appear to have been painted with tremendous speed. Krasner scratched into the surface of the paint in seemingly erratic lines in the upper right of the canvas. The scratched lines, along with the heavy black lines and drips, impart a tortured quality to the painted surface. The color palette is a jarring contrast of fleshy pinks and deep black and red. Round shapes at the top of the painting suggest mask-like faces and haunting eyes.
By titling the canvas Birth, Krasner directly referenced a key work by Pollock with the same title. [2] Done during 1938–1941, it preceded their marriage and resembles Krasner’s version in its verticality, curvaceous shapes, and dark outlines. Birth—the delivery of a child—is often a bloody and painful experience that results from sexual intercourse. In his monograph on the artist, Robert Hobbs described Krasner’s painting: “Birth is a landscape of bodies: large, pendulous breasts and swelling shapes are indicative of pregnancy, but in a negative context, for the forms are dismembered, strewn across the canvas. … Whatever her intent, the work associates birth with violence and with the breakup of something that had once been complete and whole.” [3]
Krasner, articulate in interviews, nevertheless, like so many artists, saw her art as her mouthpiece: “The serious artist is a highly sensitive, intellectual, and aware human being. … The painter’s way of expressing himself is through painting not through verbal ideas, but that doesn’t preclude the presence of highly intellectual concepts.” [4] Through the manipulation of paint, Krasner created this image communicating her mental and bodily distress during a period of dramatic personal change. The painting serves as autobiographical evidence of her trauma. Through the magic of abstraction and her ability as an artist, Krasner was able to express her true feelings.
Notes:
[1] Krasner quoted in Arthur Danto, “Lee Krasner: A Retrospective,” The Nation (February 23, 1958), 219–220.
[2] Ellen G. Landau, Lee Krasner: A Catalogue Raisonné (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1995), 157.
[2] Robert Carleton Hobbs, Lee Krasner (New York: Abbeville Press, 1993), 66.
[3] Krasner quoted in Bruce Glaser, “Jackson Pollock: An Interview with Lee Krasner,” Arts Magazine (April 1967), 37.
ProvenanceBefore 1983
Robert Miller Gallery, New York, NY.
From 1983
Barbara B. Millhouse, New York, NY, purchased from gallery 12/1983. [1]
Notes:
[1] Old cataloging information (see Object File).
Exhibition History1995
Lee Krasner: The Nature of the Body, Works from 1933-1984
Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, NY (8/12/1995-10/15/1995)
1999-2001
Lee Krasner: Palingensis
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA (10/10/1999-1/2/2000)
Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa (2/26/2000-5/21/2000)
Akron Art Museum, Akron, Ohio (6/10/2000-8/27/2000)
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY (10/6/2000-1/7/2001)
2007
Abstract/Object
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (2/27/2007-6/17/2007)
2013
Things Wondrous & Humble
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (8/8/2013-12/8/2013)
2014-2015
Love & Loss
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (10/11/2014-12/13/2015)
2019-2020
Lee Krasner: Living Colour
Barbican Centre: May 30 - Septemner 1, 2019
Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt: October 11, 2019 - January 12, 2020
Zentrum Paul Klee: February 7 - May 10, 2020
Guggenheim Bilbao: May 29 - September 6, 2020
2021
The Voyage of Life: Art, Allegory, and Community Response
Reynolda House Museum of American Art (7/16/2021 - 12/12/2021)
Published ReferencesHobbs, Robert. Lee Krasner. (New York: Abbeville Press, 1993).
Hobbs, Robert; Friedman, B. H. (Introduction by). Lee Krasner. (New York: Independent Curators International, 1999).
Strassfield, Christina and Lee Krasner Lee Krasner: The Nature of the Body, Works from 1938-1984. (East Hampton, New York: Guild Hall Museum, 1995.
Wagner, Anne. Three Artists (Three Women): Modernism in the Art of Hesse, Krasner and O'Keeffe. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996).
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Reynolda: Her Muses, Her Stories, with contributions by Martha R. Severens and David Park Curry (Winston-Salem, N.C.: Reynolda House Museum of American Art affiliated with Wake Forest University, 2017). pg 250, 251
Lee Krasner: Living Colour, edited by Eleanor Nairne, (London: Thames & Hudson, 2019). pg 114.
Status
On view