In the eventful decade of the 1930s, two eager, talented young women from very different backgrounds were drawn to New York City. Each was determined to absorb the culture, flood of ideas, and radical forms of European painting that were just becoming available to Americans. They met as students in one of the few classes in New York where avant-garde art was taught, the famous Hans Hoffmann Studio. There, at that formative and exhilarating stage of discovery, Ray Eames and Lee Krasner ignited a close friendship that would last for nearly fifty years.
Art historical accounts suggest that the two probably met in the Hans Hofmann studio, that they were members of the important American Abstract Artists group, and that they were friends, however there has been no close examination of the nature and length of their relationship.
This will be the first exhibition to focus on the period when both artists were studying and working in New York in the 1930s and '40s, and to display evidence of their continued correspondence and in-person contact during the 1960s, '70s and '80s, ending only with Krasner’s death in 1984.
Photographs showing the two together, affectionate notes, invitations to Krasner’s exhibitions and the accompanying exclusive dinners, and multiple photographs Ray Eames took during several visits to the Krasner home and studio in Springs document the lasting warmth and mutual respect between them. The exhibition will be held at the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in Springs, NY, in the summer of 2027.
Bobbi Coller is an art historian, independent curator, and educator with a Ph.D. in Art History from The Graduate Center, CUNY. She has curated more than thirty exhibitions, including The Artist’s Mother: Portraits and Homages at the National Portrait Gallery, and currently serves as Chair of the Advisory Board of the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center. Dr. Coller is now curating Dear Friends, Trailblazing Modernists, and Indispensable Wives, the first exhibition to examine the relationship between Ray Eames and Lee Krasner.