Death of an Artist Season 2: Krasner and Pollock

On May 17th, Death of an Artist returns with an all new season hosted by Katy Hessel about the woman who made the modern art world: Lee Krasner. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. It's August nineteen fifty six, a cool summer night
in Paris. An American artist named Lee Krasner is drifting
off to sleep at a friend's house. When the phone rings.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Her host answered the phone. She could tell by the
stricken look on his face that something terrible had happened.
Lee knew exactly what had happened, and she shouted out Jackson's.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
Dead Jackson as in the painter Jackson Pollock, Lee's husband.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Oh my god, the whole world stopped. Well, the whole
art world stopped.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
You know him now, of course, you can probably close
your eyes and picture one of his paintings.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
When you enter a Pollock painting, you're entering out space.
You're going through ropes and nuts and tangles of galaxies.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
He might be the most mythologized figure in American art.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
He was like the living god.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
But how much of the story that we've been told
about him is just that a myth.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Nobody knew Palack. He was just a figure in the village,
a drunk you know, who'd get in bar fights, and
no one had really seen his work.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
This is a story about love and betrayal, about addiction
and violence.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
We the moment we regard in the car and you're
a mistake. Jackson just wildly storage speed and that's when
the Cross.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
Were Sending Jackson to a Salavanian therapist was the kiss
of death as far as I'm concerned.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
But mostly it's about a passion enormously talented artist, Lee Krasner.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
I want my independence.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
Deal with it.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
I want to make my own statement. Damn well, deal
with it.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
The woman who made the modern art world.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
She had a animal. Magnetism and energy are kind of arrogance,
the commands that makes the waves happen.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
My name is Katie Hessel. I'm an art historian and
the author of a book called The Story of Art
Without Men. I've spent the past decade uncovering the stories
of great women artists, but I've never come across an
artist more game changing than this.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
One thirty six is the fabulous work of the nineteen
fifty eight Some Women won by Lee Krasner. I'm going
to sell it now fair warning, at six million, two
hundred and fifty thousand.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
From Pushkin Industries and Samasdat Audio. Welcome to Death of
an Artist Season two Krasner and Paula.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
He Brook its yours. Thank you at sixteen million, two fifty,
I'll doubload two six Thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Indeed, subscribe to pushkin Plus to hear the whole season
early and add free. Find pushkin Plus on the Death
of an Artist, show page in Apple Podcasts, or at
pushkin dot fm, slash plus