Lee Krasner: Meet the Missus

When arrested in 1936 during a protest over the dismissal of 500 artists from the WPA Federal Art Project, Lee Krasner told the unsuspecting police officer processing her that her name was “Mary Cassatt.” (One of the similarly impish men arrested gave the name “Picasso.”) For most of her life and ever since her death in 1984, Krasner has been known primarily as Mrs. Jackson Pollock, wife and widow of the abstract expressionist who dominated American art during his brief life. Gail Levin’s Lee Krasner: A Biography corrects this case of mistaken identity in bringing Krasner out from behind the familiar labels and storylines to stand on her own as a powerfully fascinating figure and artist. Krasner’s “growing recognition” from the 2000 film Pollock (in which she was portrayed by Academy Award-winner Marcia Gay Harden) and novels such as John Updike's Seek My Face “owes more to fiction than fact,” Levin writes. Lee Krasner: A Biography proves that the facts are almost always more interesting. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Lee Krasner: Meet the Missus."

[Image: Lee Krasner. Right Bird Left, 1965.]

Let the Little Children: How to Behave in a Museum

One of the unavoidable realities of going to look at art in a museum is the feeling that you the viewer are being viewed yourself—especially by your fellow patrons. In the current issue of Paper Monument: A Journal of Contemporary Art, Timothy Aubry muses on “How to Behave in an Art Museum.” Aubry wonders what the proper balance of informality and formality might be, and if the typical American is capable of finding that proper balance. As much as adults, especially parents, try to tether children in museums, maybe we have something to learn from how children see the art, see themselves, and behave. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Let the Little Children."

An Insistent History: Declaring the Women’s Art Revolution at the Sundance Film Festival

Calling it “an insistent history that refuses to wait any longer to be told,” Lynn Hershman Leeson declares “WAR,” her acronym for the women’s art revolution begun in the 1970s, through the film !Women Art Revolution, which will be shown as part of the New Frontier series at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Ms. Leeson spent the last 42 years filming feminists on the front lines of the battle for artistic equality as well as joining the battle herself. As writer, director, producer, and narrator of the film, Leeson resurrects the spirit of the ‘70s and recovers the lost history of women in art. This “insistent history” refuses to go away, and this film and the historical projects linked to it ensure that it never will. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "An Insistent History."

[Many thanks to Lynn Hershman Leeson for providing me with a review copy of her film, !Women Art Revolution. Many thanks also to the 2011 Sundance Film Festival for providing me with the image above and other press materials. The festival will be open free to the public Thursday, January 20, through Saturday, January 30, 2011.]