Past Continuous.

I attended the first day of previews for the Lee Krasner (1908–1984) and Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) joint exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

They met as emerging artists in New York in the winter of 1941. They married in 1945 and moved to Springs, Long Island, where they remained until Pollock’s untimely death.

While Pollock’s reputation historically eclipsed Krasner’s, today, both artists’ are recognized as central to the innovations of art from the mid-20th century onwards.

According to the museum notes, the exhibition traces parallel lives and practices.

Krasner, born in Brooklyn to Jewish immigrant parents from what is now Ukraine, and Pollock, raised in Los Angeles and the American West, brought different perspectives into a shared artistic relationship.

Their early paths traced distinct strands of modernism that would ultimately merge into Abstract Expressionism, a movement that was known to value the translation of inner feelings into dramatic visual landscapes.

For Pollock, his breakthrough was the drip technique, a radical mode of painting that flourished during Pollock’s prolific period. Krasner’s varied practice was exemplified by ceaseless explorations of abstraction, often prompted by her abiding interest in the possibilities of nature and color.

She led and Pollock often followed. Again exhibiting the strength of the talented female who often takes a back seat to the male ego and response to societal male hierachy.

Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous, is the first major New York presentation devoted to either artist in more than 20 years.

Featuring more than 120 paintings from 80 lenders, with 74 Krasner pieces and 48 by Pollock, it is the first exhibition to look at the full arc of their careers together.

Take the tour:

 
Metropolitan Museum of Art 1000 Fifth Avenue NYC. Open Sunday, Monday, Tuesday Thursday 10am- 5pm, Friday and Saturday 10am-9pmp. Closed Wednesdays. On view from October 4th, 2026 through January 31st, 2027.