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Women of Abstract Expressionism Artist Lee Krasner

Lee Krasner, born in 1908, was raised in Brooklyn in an Orthodox Jewish family of Russian descent. She began her studies in 1928 at the Art Students League and the National Academy of Design. In 1934, she began to work for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in its mural division. While working for the WPA, she studied under Hans Hofmann, who ignited her interest in and exposure to the School of Paris art movement and the works of Picasso and Matisse.

In 1945, Krasner married Jackson Pollock. She continued to paint throughout their marriage and for decades after her husband's death, moving into the large studio in the Springs. She passed away in 1984, a year after a traveling retrospective of her work opened at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.