LEE KRASNER was an abstract expressionist artist and member of the New York School. Her artwork was pivotal to the development of abstract expressionism in the 1950s and 60s. Covered in bright colours and wild brushstrokes, her highly expressive paintings inspired some of the more famous artists of the time, including her husband, Jackson Pollock.
Lee was a powerful and independent woman; despite many of her contemporaries linking her to her husband, she truly carved her own path in the art world. She distinguished herself from the other artists in her circle, men such as Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko and Barnett Newmann, by refusing to adopt a singular style and instead embraced change as a way of reflecting the changes in her own life.
Lee Krasner embodies Prabal Gurung’s inspiration of “femininity with a bite,” having played both the role of compassionate wife and that of independent and liberated artist simultaneously. Krasner and Pollock’s marriage was a difficult one and ended with Pollock’s death in 1956 from a car crash after years of alcohol abuse. Their relationship inspired both their work, and Lee went so far as to use discarded canvases’ of Pollock’s in her own work in what some called an attempt to create intimacy between them during the rough patches in their relationship. After her passing, Krasner’s legacy was recognised through a retrospective at the MoMA. She was only one of four women to have had a retrospective show at the MoMA as late as 2008.
The Lee boot is inspired by the spirit of Lee’s times. It embodies the mod style of the swinging 60s and can easily be pictured on the feet of one of Warhol’s factory girls as they danced the night away at Studio 54.
