Lee Krasner

"I was quite active politically just previous to this, and Im leading into this time when I was on WPA and there was a group called the Artists Union which was organized, so that I was extremely active in that. Again that meant more meetings and fighting for artists rights on the WPA.. .I would say it gave me an opportunity to continue through a period of where one had a livelihood to deal with and/or painting. This allowed for painting and Id say in that sense it was extremely influencing.. ..WPA itself ended after the War Service Project and by way of terminating, it allowed you to take one of several war courses that were being offered. After which you were supposed to be able to go into that field and earn a living. I took drafting."

"I think my painting is so autobiographical if anyone can take the trouble to read it."

"I think I stayed in the Mural division [ WPA, early 1940s] until it became A War Service Project and then I was relegated to do a specific job. There was a coordinated move, they had a new president that was being inaugurated for CCNY and they were doing a large – trying to show how higher education was involved in promoting the war effort, with the classes they were teaching, so that I did this work for more than a year before WPA terminated."

"Without getting complicated let me recapitulate my art training in the following way: the Academy first, the break with the Academy when I hit the Hofmann School which is Cubist. The next real break follows when I see Pollock’s work [1940-41] and once more another transition occurs.. .It was a force [Pollock’s work], a living force, the same sort of thing I responded to in Matisse, in Picasso, in Mondrian. Once more, I was hit that hard with what I saw... I began feeling the need to break with what I was doing and to approach something else."

"Well I think it [a Little Image painting] does suggest hieroglyphics of some sort. It is a preoccupation of mine from way back and every once in a while it comes into my work again. For instance in my 1968 show at the Marlborough I have a painting called Kufic, an ancient form of Arabic writing. Every once in a while I fall back to what I call my mysterious writings. I haven no idea what this is about but it runs through periods of my work."

"I went into my own black-out period [1942-45] which lasted two or three years where the canvases would simply build up until they’d get like stone and it was always just a gray mess. The image wouldn’t emerge, but I worked pretty regularly. I was fighting to find I knew not what, but I could no longer stay with what I had."

"My recollection of meeting him [ Jackson Pollock ] outside of this one incident, was at a show that John Graham did at the MacMillin Gallery [1942]. He invited someone called Jackson Pollock and myself, and, I believe, de Kooning. There were three unknown Americans put into that show and it turned out we were the three and it was through that source, my trying to track down the other unknown American who was painting abstractly at that point, as though I knew them all in New York City.. ..and I promptly went up to Pollocks studio and thats when I say I met Pollock for the first time.. ..And then, you see, after I saw Pollock, met him, saw the work, I said, "I understand the third painter is de Kooning," and he said he didnt know de Kooning and I said, "Well, I do and Ill take you over and introduce you." So I brought Pollock up to de Koonings studio. De Kooning was in a loft at that time because he was something, and that is how Pollock met De Kooning."

"He [ Hans Hofmann one of her art teachers] would come up to me [1937-38], look at my work, and do a critique half in English and half in German, but certainly nothing I could understand. When he left the room I would call George McNeil, who was then the monitor, over and I would ask: What did this man say to me? Hoffman was teaching Cubism and that was pretty exciting. Matisse and Picasso were my highlights. It was as though I was swinging between them. First I started to work with color and then there was a heavy swing toward the linear."

"You have a very strong inner rhythm. You must never lose it."

"(Piet Mondrians) comment was: You have a very strong inner rhythm. You must never lose it. Then we moved on. Piet Mondrian had said something quiet beautiful to me. Hofmann was also excited and enthusiastic about what I was doing at this time [c. 1938] but his comment was: This is so good that you would not know it was done by a woman. His was a double-edged compliment. But Mondrian’s evaluation rides through beautifully."

"I do not mean extended, to mean esthetic definition of space. For me, it is a matter of whether the canvas allows me to breathe or not – if the canvas soars into space or if it is earthbound. When it is earthbound it irritates me enormously. I would like to soar in a canvas."

"With Jackson there was quiet solitude. Just to sit and look at the landscape. An inner quietness. After dinner, to sit on the back porch and look at the light. No need for talking. For any kind of communication."