Southampton Arts Center spotlights 'Heroines of the Abstract Expressionist Era'

In one of art history's least beloved anecdotes, Lee Krasner, the pioneering painter, East Hampton resident and wife of Jackson Pollock, recounted to an interviewer that her teacher, artist Hans Hoffman, was once so impressed by her work that he said, "This is so good. You would not know it was done by a woman."

Things have changed since the 1950s, but the art that put New York and Long Island's East End at the epicenter of visual culture has endured. Much of it, and the thinking that made it happen, was done by women. The Southampton Arts Center celebrates "Heroines of the Abstract Expressionist Era: From the New York School to the Hamptons" in an exhibition of more than 100 works created by 31 women. The show comes from the collection of Hamptons art fair organizer Rick Friedman and Cindy Lou Wakefield, a couple from Southampton, and it runs through Dec. 17.

Krasner, Helen Frankenthaler, Grace Hartigan, Louise Bourgeois, Elaine de Kooning, Joan Mitchell, Louise Nevelson, Audrey Flack and more are represented with paintings, drawings and sculptures. These were some of the greatest artists of the 20th century, and they were our neighbors. "That's exactly right," said Friedman. "We take the 1950s Ab-Ex New York School, the most important movement in 20th century American art, and follow their migration to the Hamptons, linking New York to the Hamptons."

WOMEN GETTING THEIR DUE

Though they also own works by male Abstract Expressionists, Friedman and Wakefield chose to focus this show on women. "We always felt that the women artists were overlooked," Friedman said, "These are incredible artists, and they weren't getting their fair due."

Christina Mossaides Strassfield, executive director of the center, scheduled the exhibition to coincide with the institution's 10th anniversary. "It's really exciting to bring them back to their home territory," she said.

The galleries are filled with bold, energetic, gutsy works characterized by expressive gestures, cool rationality, and evocative tonalities — everything expected in top-notch Abstract Expressionism. "If you didn't know, you'd say what a dynamic show; you wouldn't say it's by women artists," Strassfield said. "People don't realize that there is no difference. You just have to accept the art for art's sake."

She points to an anchor piece in the exhibition, Krasner's "Offbeat," a 1956 oil on canvas. "The color palette, the way the paint has been applied, the transparencies in certain areas, the thickness in others. Your eye is traveling all over the canvas," she explained. "There are elements of nature in it, and another area you don't know what it is … It looks like there are windows to another plane. The black pulls you back; the colors are pushing forward. There's an energy to the painting, a lightness to the painting, as well as a certain somber quality … That's the beauty of abstract art. Each person who looks at it is going to have a completely different interpretation of it, and I think that's extremely exciting."

MAKING CREATIVE STRIDES

Abstract Expressionism was originally touted as the domain of rule-breaking male geniuses, with women as their muses. It's a story that's due for revision. Books and films have addressed it, and there's an Amazon series in the works. The exhibition shows, firsthand, women making the same creative strides at the same time as men.

Still, some of the women exhibited under male names. "This was something that they had to do," said Strassfield. Several were married to male artists: Krasner to Pollock, Frankenthaler to Robert Motherwell, de Kooning to Willem de Kooning, Hedda Sterne to Saul Steinberg, Charlotte Park to James Brooks. They worked side-by-side with their spouses, sharing ideas, but often sublimated their careers to advance those of their breadwinner husbands to make the rent. "They thought it was more beneficial to support their husbands," noted Strassfield, while adding that nowadays Krasner is considered by some a better artist than Pollock.

On the schedule are presentations by the curator and the collectors, the 2000 film "Pollock" introduced by Helen Harrison from the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, and a talk with one of the original members of the New York School, Audrey Flack.

While exhibitions focused on women Abstract Expressionists have been presented before, none has included this many women and been focused on Long Island. "People are recognizing this work now," said Friedman. "Rediscoveries are great and fun." They're also overdue noted Strassfield, adding that equal recognition is "still a long ways away."