May 17, 2024 • 21 mins
1956. Paris. An artist named Lee Krasner learns that her husband is dead.
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. It's a cool summer evening in Paris, August nineteen
fifty six, an American artist called Lee Krasna is at
a friend's place.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
It was a magnificent apartment, was a huge skylight, easels everywhere.
She was completely at home, amid the smell of turpentine
and lindseed oil.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Paris is Lee's mecca, the home of modern art. Now
in her late forties, She's finally here.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Looking at what was happening in Paris and who was
doing what, who was painting, who was showing what? Galleries
were showing what.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
But this isn't just a work trip.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Lee was there to recharge her batteries because of a
very tricky relationship with a husband she had left behind
in the States.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
A turbulent relationship to say the least, his ego, alcoholism,
and now an affair. But a month in Paris has
helped take her mind off life back home. That evening,
Lie's relaxed, drifting into sleep.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
And as she settled in on her friend's couch for
the night, about three in the morning, the phone rang.
Her host answered the phone and didn't say anything, but
she could tell by the stricken look on his face
(01:54):
that something terrible had happened. Without knowing any of the
words on the other end of the phone, Lee knew
exactly what had happened, and she shouted out, Jackson's dead.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Lee's husband is Jackson Pollock.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Her host saw that agony in her face, the absolute pain,
and rushed over to her and held her in his
arms for what he described as an endless half hour,
during which she writhed and moaned and was in utter agony.
He was actually terrified for her life because their apartment
had a balcony, and he was afraid she might do
(02:46):
something drastic. You know, that she might try to throw
herself off.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Later that same day, Lee would get on a plane
to New York, arrange his funeral, and mourn her husband.
But the story of Lion Jackson doesn't end there. After
(03:17):
spending weeks in a daze, unable to sleep, she would
embark on something extraordinary. What she'd do next would change history,
turning her dead husband into the most famous American painter
of all time and changing the way we all think
(03:41):
about art. I'm Katie Hessel, art historian and writer, and
this is Death of an Artist. Season two, Krasner and Pollock,
Episode one crash. Okay, so Audrey, please, can you introduce yourself?
(04:08):
Who you are? What do you do?
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Well? I don't want to do that. You should do that.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Okay, let's leave that.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
You know you should say. Here's Artery Flat and she's
blah blah blah, and she's an ancient person.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Audrey Flat is ninety two years old and is as
New York as it comes. She's been a painter for
seven decades now, and back in the nineteen fifties she
was right at the center of the downtown art scene,
then made up of only a handful of people.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
I had a studio on Eighth Street and Third Avenue.
My studio was in a condemned building. The floors were
rotted and the stairway was hanging down and it wasn't safe.
So of course that's a perfect place for artists.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
A few blocks up was a dive bar called the Cedar.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
The Cedar was, you know, the place that everybody went, smoky, crowded.
I was very busy and jam packed and exciting, and
the talk there were really arguments about who was a
greater artist, a Tintrredo or Caravaggia.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Yeah, not my usual Saturday night chat.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
There was a bar with stools. They were drinking little
shots of Scotch with a beer chaser. Jackson liked to
sit towards the back. His face was bloated, his skin,
you know, had little capillaries had broken in his nose,
and you don't ever notice when somebody drinks too.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Much, Audrey. You'd see Jackson Pollock there most nights. He
was a big guy, early forties, scruffy, often wearing a
baggy coat, hi at his beer belly inside the cedar.
Among fellow artists, he was a big deal, the one
they all looked up to. And that goes for Audrey Flack,
(06:13):
then a young artist.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
One night I went to the cedar, Jackson wandered over.
He stumbled over because he was clearly plastered, and sort
of fell into the other chair next to me. We
were talking and I wanted to ask him about his art,
and then he started coming close to me. He brushed
(06:38):
his face against mine, and he had a three day stubble.
It was scratchy, and obviously he didn't smell too good
because I don't think he had washed. And then he burped,
he belched, and then he was embarrassed and he tried
to pinch my behind and then he leans over and
he says, let's buck. I said, no, I'm not going
(07:02):
to do that. Jackson. Just calm down. And that was
the night that I I would never go back to.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
The Cedar, and she didn't, but plenty of others did
because the reality was that if you wanted to be
in the art scene, if you really wanted to make it,
you had to show your face. At the Cedar.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
They were the oh what are the girls who follow
the rock stars?
Speaker 4 (07:34):
Groupees?
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Groupies? They were groupies. They thought if they slept with big,
hard shows, it would rub off and they would have
some importance. That is how it was.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
And it was there at the Cedar that Jackson met
a friend of Audrey's who just moved to the city,
a twenty six year old artist called Ruth Kleigman.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Ruth was unbelievably sexy. It just wreaked, thick black hair,
rimmed sunglasses and red lipster. She looks like Elizabeth Taylor.
She was really knocked out. She really had a good
eye and an ability to talk that mesmerized you, which
(08:24):
she must have done to Jackson. She really got him.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
By this point, Jackson had been married to Lee for
a decade. Their marriage well, it had its ups and downs,
and the downs largely corresponded to Jackson's binges. And when
Jackson met Ruth at the Cedar, he was in one
of his spirals.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Jackson had carried on his affair in secret, well secret
to Lee.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
That's Mary Gabriel, a journalist who wrote the book Ninth
Street Women, all about the women of the American modern
art scene. You'll be hearing a lot from her throughout
the show. Anyway, back to Jackson's.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Affair, everyone else in their community was well aware of
it because he wore Ruth Kligman and his arm like
a prize.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
A few months after getting together, Ruth started spending more
and more time at Jackson's home in Long Island, a
little farmhouse right by the beach. Lee was away that
summer in Paris, and Ruth made the most of it.
One hot day, she invited her friend Edith Metzger to
take the two hour train ride out to Jackson's place
(09:38):
with her. Ruth couldn't wait to take a cool dip
in the ocean and show off her new artist's boyfriend.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
They were met at the train station by a Sadden,
middle aged drunk who barely spoke, who was angry that
Ruth had brought Edith with her.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
It was ten am and already he reeked of booze.
Not knowing what else to do, Ruth and her friend
Edith piled into Jackson's mint green eighty eight Oldsmobile convertible,
but instead of going to the house or to the beach,
Jackson headed straight to a bar.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Carlock's usual drink of choice was beer, but that day
he turned to gin and got immediately hammered.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Jackson drank until lunchtime, then finally drove them home. The
two women changed into their bathing suits, ready to go
to the beach, but when they came into the kitchen,
they found Jackson raiding the cupboards for more booze. Ruth
was desperate to salvage the situation to show her friend
(10:46):
at least some kind of Saturday night. She started arguing
with Jackson, but he didn't want to go to the beach.
All he wanted to do was drink. Ruth wore him down,
and finally he announced that they were going to a party.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
It was going to be a cantered at a mansion
on Long.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Island, the hottest ticket in town.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
That was exactly what Ruth and Edith needed to hear
to resurrect their fantasy and their plans. So they changed
into party dresses and Jackson cleaned himself up.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
They got into Jackson's convertible. It was getting dark out
no street lights.
Speaker 4 (11:29):
From the moment we regot in the car into.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
A simistic that's Ruth speaking in a rare interview.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
We're on our way, kept stopping the car crying. Edith
became provocatives in the sense that she didn't understand, and
she got very scared.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Jackson was paying so little attention at this point that
the car simply rolled to a stop.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
A policeman pulled up alongside him and asked it everything
was okay. He had his wits about him enough to
reassure the policeman that yes, he said, They had just
stopped to talk.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
The policeman drove on, and Jackson turned the car around.
He headed towards home, stopped at another bar, but changed
his mind about going in. Edith couldn't take it anymore.
She got out of the car and refused to get
back in. Jackson was furious. They were just two minutes
(12:26):
from his house. Ruth managed to coax her friend to
get back in the car. Jackson put his key in
the ignition.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
The acting just wildly started to speed and he put
his foot on the gas. He did started to scream.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
And he laughed.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
He speeded down Thirdla's room. That's when the car swore.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
The car hurtled off the road into a ditch and
smashed into some trees. Ruth blacked out. She was woken
up a few minutes later.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
The young girl came up to me and she's patting me.
And there was a man and I was holding his
hand and they covered me. And I made this girl.
I said, go over there to where the car is
and I'll be watching you, and come back and tell
me if he's all right. And she did. And she
(13:42):
came back and I said, is he alive? She said yes.
I said, swear by God, she said I can't. So
I knew.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Both Jackson and Edith were dead. In only a few hours.
The art world would find out. That's coming up after
the break, The news that Jackson Pollock was dead spread
quickly through the art world. Within a few hours, it
(14:24):
seemed like everybody knew.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Oh my god. The whole world stopped, well, the whole
art world stopped.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
He was the center of their world, and now he
was gone.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Everybody called each other. It was electrifying, like a spark
went out. Everybody was shocked and sad and depressed.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Later that day, while Lee Krasner, Jackson's wife, was on
a plane back to New York, their friends gathered at
their house in Long Island waiting for her arrival.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
They weren't sure how much she knew about the circumstances
of Jackson's death. That Ruth was in the carr that
a young woman had died with him.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Ruth's clothes were still everywhere, as were Jackson's bottles, broken glasses,
cigarette butts.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
No one was sure what to expect from Lee.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Late afternoon on Monday, the thirteenth of August nineteen fifty six,
barely forty eight hours after the death of her husband,
Lee opened the door.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
She walked in the house, strong and calm and determined
and focused. They were shocked because it was a house
of mourning she had entered. Their friends were grieving. Their
friends were crying, and yet Lee wasn't. She was there,
dry eyed, seemingly to console them. It was Lee who
put her arms around people. It was Lee who was
(15:52):
the strength in that community at that moment.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
As their friends were crying, not knowing what to do,
Lee took charge. She was ready to face what was coming.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
To be the person she always was, which was the
person who took care of a situation analytically. If there
was any private morning to be done, if there was
any pain or grief to be shown, she would do
that later.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Because first Lee was going to have to organize her
husband's funeral, and there was a problem.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
They only had two hundred dollars in the bank.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Yeah, only two hundred dollars.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
And with that she had to find a way to
bury her husband, to arrange a funeral in a chapel,
to buy burial platz.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Lee moved quickly. She borrowed money from friends, called Jackson's family,
made arrangements with the vicar, and just four days after
the crash, the small local chapel was hosting an odd
mix of people, artists, friends, Jackson's family, and locals.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
The funeral at the Springs Chapel was samber and silent.
The artists were silent. The minister didn't mention Jackson's name.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Not the sendoff you might have imagined for Jackson Pollock.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
This was where the locals from Springs were buried, the
fishermen and the farmers.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
After the burial, the mourners headed back to the house.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
All of that emotion that had been pent up through
the morning at the chapelain at the cemetery exploded in
what everyone agreed was the most raucous party that had
ever been thrown at Fireplace Road. Someone joked at one
point that Jackson must have been spiking the punch because
(17:38):
they all got drunk so quickly, and they danced and
the release was palpable.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
If this story had finished here, Jackson might have been forgotten.
That would be it. But as you know, that's not
what happened.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Here.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
It is at fifty two million dollars. His work would
go on to sell for eye watering sums sold fifty
two million, he would become the most famous American artist
of all time.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Jackson Pollock is a name recognized by people well beyond
the art world.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
He's famous for those drip paintings that seem to him.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
His paintings would influence filmmakers, musicians, fashion, you name it.
They would change the course of twentieth century culture.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
When you enter a Pollock painting, you're entering out of space.
He was like a living god.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Many of us have been told a certain story about
Jackson Pollock as the man who changed art forever, who
changed America, who changed how we see. That's probably what
you know about him, And that's what's so intriguing to me, because,
as I see it, the story we've been told about
(19:05):
Jackson Pollock is a myth. The real story is so
much better. I'm Katie Hessel, and I've spent the past
decade uncovering the stories of great women artists, but I've
never come across one more game changing than this one.
When Jackson Pollock died in nineteen fifty six, his global
(19:29):
fame and fortune hadn't peaked yet, nowhere near. And none
of it would ever have happened if not for someone else,
someone hiding in plain sight, the woman who just put
her husband in the ground and had less than two
hundred dollars to her name, Lee Krasner.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Nobody knew Polack. He was just a figure in the village,
a drunk.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
You're kidding all these Jackson Pollock paintings, When are you
going to deal with them paper, You're living room.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
This shy, good looking young man appeared at this art
opening and the arm of a supernova. If it hadn't
been for Lee Krasner Jackson Pollock would not have been
the power that it was.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
That's all coming up on Death of an Artist Season
two Krasner and Pollock. Death of an Artist Krasner and
Pollock is produced by Pushkin Industries and Samasdat Audio. Clem
(20:38):
Hitchcock is our producer. Story editing by Dasha litz Azzina,
Sophie Crane and Karen Schakerji from Pushkin. The executive producer
is Jacob Smith from Samazdat Audio. The executive producers are
Dasha litz Azzina and Joe Sykes. Sound design by Peregrin Andrews.
(20:59):
Original scoring and our theme were composed by Martin Orstwick.
Fact checking by Arthur Gompertz. Special thanks to Jacob Weissberg.
I'm Katie Hassel
Pushkin. It's a cool summer evening in Paris, August nineteen
fifty six, an American artist called Lee Krasna is at
a friend's place.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
It was a magnificent apartment, was a huge skylight, easels everywhere.
She was completely at home, amid the smell of turpentine
and lindseed oil.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Paris is Lee's mecca, the home of modern art. Now
in her late forties, She's finally here.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Looking at what was happening in Paris and who was
doing what, who was painting, who was showing what? Galleries
were showing what.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
But this isn't just a work trip.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Lee was there to recharge her batteries because of a
very tricky relationship with a husband she had left behind
in the States.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
A turbulent relationship to say the least, his ego, alcoholism,
and now an affair. But a month in Paris has
helped take her mind off life back home. That evening,
Lie's relaxed, drifting into sleep.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
And as she settled in on her friend's couch for
the night, about three in the morning, the phone rang.
Her host answered the phone and didn't say anything, but
she could tell by the stricken look on his face
(01:54):
that something terrible had happened. Without knowing any of the
words on the other end of the phone, Lee knew
exactly what had happened, and she shouted out, Jackson's dead.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Lee's husband is Jackson Pollock.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Her host saw that agony in her face, the absolute pain,
and rushed over to her and held her in his
arms for what he described as an endless half hour,
during which she writhed and moaned and was in utter agony.
He was actually terrified for her life because their apartment
had a balcony, and he was afraid she might do
(02:46):
something drastic. You know, that she might try to throw
herself off.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Later that same day, Lee would get on a plane
to New York, arrange his funeral, and mourn her husband.
But the story of Lion Jackson doesn't end there. After
(03:17):
spending weeks in a daze, unable to sleep, she would
embark on something extraordinary. What she'd do next would change history,
turning her dead husband into the most famous American painter
of all time and changing the way we all think
(03:41):
about art. I'm Katie Hessel, art historian and writer, and
this is Death of an Artist. Season two, Krasner and Pollock,
Episode one crash. Okay, so Audrey, please, can you introduce yourself?
(04:08):
Who you are? What do you do?
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Well? I don't want to do that. You should do that.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Okay, let's leave that.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
You know you should say. Here's Artery Flat and she's
blah blah blah, and she's an ancient person.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Audrey Flat is ninety two years old and is as
New York as it comes. She's been a painter for
seven decades now, and back in the nineteen fifties she
was right at the center of the downtown art scene,
then made up of only a handful of people.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
I had a studio on Eighth Street and Third Avenue.
My studio was in a condemned building. The floors were
rotted and the stairway was hanging down and it wasn't safe.
So of course that's a perfect place for artists.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
A few blocks up was a dive bar called the Cedar.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
The Cedar was, you know, the place that everybody went, smoky, crowded.
I was very busy and jam packed and exciting, and
the talk there were really arguments about who was a
greater artist, a Tintrredo or Caravaggia.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Yeah, not my usual Saturday night chat.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
There was a bar with stools. They were drinking little
shots of Scotch with a beer chaser. Jackson liked to
sit towards the back. His face was bloated, his skin,
you know, had little capillaries had broken in his nose,
and you don't ever notice when somebody drinks too.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Much, Audrey. You'd see Jackson Pollock there most nights. He
was a big guy, early forties, scruffy, often wearing a
baggy coat, hi at his beer belly inside the cedar.
Among fellow artists, he was a big deal, the one
they all looked up to. And that goes for Audrey Flack,
(06:13):
then a young artist.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
One night I went to the cedar, Jackson wandered over.
He stumbled over because he was clearly plastered, and sort
of fell into the other chair next to me. We
were talking and I wanted to ask him about his art,
and then he started coming close to me. He brushed
(06:38):
his face against mine, and he had a three day stubble.
It was scratchy, and obviously he didn't smell too good
because I don't think he had washed. And then he burped,
he belched, and then he was embarrassed and he tried
to pinch my behind and then he leans over and
he says, let's buck. I said, no, I'm not going
(07:02):
to do that. Jackson. Just calm down. And that was
the night that I I would never go back to.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
The Cedar, and she didn't, but plenty of others did
because the reality was that if you wanted to be
in the art scene, if you really wanted to make it,
you had to show your face. At the Cedar.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
They were the oh what are the girls who follow
the rock stars?
Speaker 4 (07:34):
Groupees?
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Groupies? They were groupies. They thought if they slept with big,
hard shows, it would rub off and they would have
some importance. That is how it was.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
And it was there at the Cedar that Jackson met
a friend of Audrey's who just moved to the city,
a twenty six year old artist called Ruth Kleigman.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Ruth was unbelievably sexy. It just wreaked, thick black hair,
rimmed sunglasses and red lipster. She looks like Elizabeth Taylor.
She was really knocked out. She really had a good
eye and an ability to talk that mesmerized you, which
(08:24):
she must have done to Jackson. She really got him.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
By this point, Jackson had been married to Lee for
a decade. Their marriage well, it had its ups and downs,
and the downs largely corresponded to Jackson's binges. And when
Jackson met Ruth at the Cedar, he was in one
of his spirals.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Jackson had carried on his affair in secret, well secret
to Lee.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
That's Mary Gabriel, a journalist who wrote the book Ninth
Street Women, all about the women of the American modern
art scene. You'll be hearing a lot from her throughout
the show. Anyway, back to Jackson's.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Affair, everyone else in their community was well aware of
it because he wore Ruth Kligman and his arm like
a prize.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
A few months after getting together, Ruth started spending more
and more time at Jackson's home in Long Island, a
little farmhouse right by the beach. Lee was away that
summer in Paris, and Ruth made the most of it.
One hot day, she invited her friend Edith Metzger to
take the two hour train ride out to Jackson's place
(09:38):
with her. Ruth couldn't wait to take a cool dip
in the ocean and show off her new artist's boyfriend.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
They were met at the train station by a Sadden,
middle aged drunk who barely spoke, who was angry that
Ruth had brought Edith with her.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
It was ten am and already he reeked of booze.
Not knowing what else to do, Ruth and her friend
Edith piled into Jackson's mint green eighty eight Oldsmobile convertible,
but instead of going to the house or to the beach,
Jackson headed straight to a bar.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Carlock's usual drink of choice was beer, but that day
he turned to gin and got immediately hammered.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Jackson drank until lunchtime, then finally drove them home. The
two women changed into their bathing suits, ready to go
to the beach, but when they came into the kitchen,
they found Jackson raiding the cupboards for more booze. Ruth
was desperate to salvage the situation to show her friend
(10:46):
at least some kind of Saturday night. She started arguing
with Jackson, but he didn't want to go to the beach.
All he wanted to do was drink. Ruth wore him down,
and finally he announced that they were going to a party.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
It was going to be a cantered at a mansion
on Long.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Island, the hottest ticket in town.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
That was exactly what Ruth and Edith needed to hear
to resurrect their fantasy and their plans. So they changed
into party dresses and Jackson cleaned himself up.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
They got into Jackson's convertible. It was getting dark out
no street lights.
Speaker 4 (11:29):
From the moment we regot in the car into.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
A simistic that's Ruth speaking in a rare interview.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
We're on our way, kept stopping the car crying. Edith
became provocatives in the sense that she didn't understand, and
she got very scared.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Jackson was paying so little attention at this point that
the car simply rolled to a stop.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
A policeman pulled up alongside him and asked it everything
was okay. He had his wits about him enough to
reassure the policeman that yes, he said, They had just
stopped to talk.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
The policeman drove on, and Jackson turned the car around.
He headed towards home, stopped at another bar, but changed
his mind about going in. Edith couldn't take it anymore.
She got out of the car and refused to get
back in. Jackson was furious. They were just two minutes
(12:26):
from his house. Ruth managed to coax her friend to
get back in the car. Jackson put his key in
the ignition.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
The acting just wildly started to speed and he put
his foot on the gas. He did started to scream.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
And he laughed.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
He speeded down Thirdla's room. That's when the car swore.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
The car hurtled off the road into a ditch and
smashed into some trees. Ruth blacked out. She was woken
up a few minutes later.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
The young girl came up to me and she's patting me.
And there was a man and I was holding his
hand and they covered me. And I made this girl.
I said, go over there to where the car is
and I'll be watching you, and come back and tell
me if he's all right. And she did. And she
(13:42):
came back and I said, is he alive? She said yes.
I said, swear by God, she said I can't. So
I knew.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Both Jackson and Edith were dead. In only a few hours.
The art world would find out. That's coming up after
the break, The news that Jackson Pollock was dead spread
quickly through the art world. Within a few hours, it
(14:24):
seemed like everybody knew.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Oh my god. The whole world stopped, well, the whole
art world stopped.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
He was the center of their world, and now he
was gone.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Everybody called each other. It was electrifying, like a spark
went out. Everybody was shocked and sad and depressed.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Later that day, while Lee Krasner, Jackson's wife, was on
a plane back to New York, their friends gathered at
their house in Long Island waiting for her arrival.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
They weren't sure how much she knew about the circumstances
of Jackson's death. That Ruth was in the carr that
a young woman had died with him.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Ruth's clothes were still everywhere, as were Jackson's bottles, broken glasses,
cigarette butts.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
No one was sure what to expect from Lee.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Late afternoon on Monday, the thirteenth of August nineteen fifty six,
barely forty eight hours after the death of her husband,
Lee opened the door.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
She walked in the house, strong and calm and determined
and focused. They were shocked because it was a house
of mourning she had entered. Their friends were grieving. Their
friends were crying, and yet Lee wasn't. She was there,
dry eyed, seemingly to console them. It was Lee who
put her arms around people. It was Lee who was
(15:52):
the strength in that community at that moment.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
As their friends were crying, not knowing what to do,
Lee took charge. She was ready to face what was coming.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
To be the person she always was, which was the
person who took care of a situation analytically. If there
was any private morning to be done, if there was
any pain or grief to be shown, she would do
that later.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Because first Lee was going to have to organize her
husband's funeral, and there was a problem.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
They only had two hundred dollars in the bank.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Yeah, only two hundred dollars.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
And with that she had to find a way to
bury her husband, to arrange a funeral in a chapel,
to buy burial platz.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Lee moved quickly. She borrowed money from friends, called Jackson's family,
made arrangements with the vicar, and just four days after
the crash, the small local chapel was hosting an odd
mix of people, artists, friends, Jackson's family, and locals.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
The funeral at the Springs Chapel was samber and silent.
The artists were silent. The minister didn't mention Jackson's name.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Not the sendoff you might have imagined for Jackson Pollock.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
This was where the locals from Springs were buried, the
fishermen and the farmers.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
After the burial, the mourners headed back to the house.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
All of that emotion that had been pent up through
the morning at the chapelain at the cemetery exploded in
what everyone agreed was the most raucous party that had
ever been thrown at Fireplace Road. Someone joked at one
point that Jackson must have been spiking the punch because
(17:38):
they all got drunk so quickly, and they danced and
the release was palpable.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
If this story had finished here, Jackson might have been forgotten.
That would be it. But as you know, that's not
what happened.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Here.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
It is at fifty two million dollars. His work would
go on to sell for eye watering sums sold fifty
two million, he would become the most famous American artist
of all time.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Jackson Pollock is a name recognized by people well beyond
the art world.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
He's famous for those drip paintings that seem to him.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
His paintings would influence filmmakers, musicians, fashion, you name it.
They would change the course of twentieth century culture.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
When you enter a Pollock painting, you're entering out of space.
He was like a living god.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Many of us have been told a certain story about
Jackson Pollock as the man who changed art forever, who
changed America, who changed how we see. That's probably what
you know about him, And that's what's so intriguing to me, because,
as I see it, the story we've been told about
(19:05):
Jackson Pollock is a myth. The real story is so
much better. I'm Katie Hessel, and I've spent the past
decade uncovering the stories of great women artists, but I've
never come across one more game changing than this one.
When Jackson Pollock died in nineteen fifty six, his global
(19:29):
fame and fortune hadn't peaked yet, nowhere near. And none
of it would ever have happened if not for someone else,
someone hiding in plain sight, the woman who just put
her husband in the ground and had less than two
hundred dollars to her name, Lee Krasner.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Nobody knew Polack. He was just a figure in the village,
a drunk.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
You're kidding all these Jackson Pollock paintings, When are you
going to deal with them paper, You're living room.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
This shy, good looking young man appeared at this art
opening and the arm of a supernova. If it hadn't
been for Lee Krasner Jackson Pollock would not have been
the power that it was.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
That's all coming up on Death of an Artist Season
two Krasner and Pollock. Death of an Artist Krasner and
Pollock is produced by Pushkin Industries and Samasdat Audio. Clem
(20:38):
Hitchcock is our producer. Story editing by Dasha litz Azzina,
Sophie Crane and Karen Schakerji from Pushkin. The executive producer
is Jacob Smith from Samazdat Audio. The executive producers are
Dasha litz Azzina and Joe Sykes. Sound design by Peregrin Andrews.
(20:59):
Original scoring and our theme were composed by Martin Orstwick.
Fact checking by Arthur Gompertz. Special thanks to Jacob Weissberg.
I'm Katie Hassel
Host
Helen Molesworth
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