Lee Krasner’s 1960s paintings arrive in Paris for first solo show

Gagosian Paris welcomes Lee Krasner’s first solo presentation in France, a significant exhibition of paintings and works on paper created during the 1960s. Organised in collaboration with the Pollock Krasner Foundation and Olney Gleason, the show unfolds across rue de Ponthieu, where Krasner’s abstract vocabulary commands the galleries with its characteristic intensity and chromatic sophistication.

The decade of the sixties found Krasner working with particular urgency, her compositions alive with layered gestures rendered in reds, ochres, cream and burgundy. The paintings oscillate between gestural abstraction and something more meditative, each work a conversation between spontaneity and control. Her technique, which involved scraping, dragging and building pigment across the canvas surface, creates visual rhythms that feel both intimate and monumental.

Krasner’s contribution to post war abstraction remains singular. Operating within the same artistic circles as her husband Jackson Pollock, she forged an independent language that resists easy categorisation. The 1960s works here demonstrate her refusal of a single approach; instead, she moved fluidly between scales, methods and emotional temperatures, each piece a testament to her restless inquiry into what paint and paper could articulate.

The Pollock Krasner Foundation, established to preserve and promote their legacies, has been instrumental in reassessing Krasner’s historical standing. This Paris presentation marks a moment of proper reckoning in Europe, where her work has long deserved wider recognition. The exhibition runs at Gagosian, rue de Ponthieu, Paris.

Imagery courtesy of Gagosian (@gagosian).