Read Online Lee Krasner by Gail Levin - Free Book Online

learning how to use it intelligently so as to realize the ultimate aim of the movement—absolute equality between men and women.” 21 Meanwhile reformers such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman discussed “companionate marriage” publicly, condemning it as “merely legal indulgence” of those “who deliberately prefer not to have children to interfere with their pleasures.” 22 She excoriated those “who seek sex indulgence without marriage, and whose activities have long been recognized as so deleterious as to be called ‘social evil,’” blaming much such behavior on “that new contingent who are infected by Freudian and sub-Freudian theories.” 23
    Meanwhile the Reverend Henry Sloane Coffin, president of the Union Theological Seminary, exhorted married couples to hold “to marital vows and the keeping up of appearances even though the illusions and ideals of marriage have vanished.” Coffin evoked a case in which “the wife realizes that she has married a mediocrity, or a weakling, or a scamp; the husband finds himself tied to a scold, or a bore, or a heartless worldling.” 24 Such public discourse did little to make young women like Krasner long for matrimony just when they were beginning to test freedoms newly found.
    Krasner’s eventual decision to avoid motherhood should be viewed in the context of those who were then insisting that “the greatest social problem of the day” was excess population. Many in this camp, such as Harry Emerson Fosdick of the Park Avenue Baptist Church, argued publicly for “the general practice of scientific birth control.” 25 This issue was closely related to the anti-immigration legislation that had passed in the early 1920s, which encouraged those who openly called for the use of eugenics to shape the population. Indeed, Fosdick described himself as “restrictionist in immigration.” 26
    Krasner’s own outlook was strongly cosmopolitan, having grown up in a neighborhood populated by a mix of old Dutch farmers and recent immigrants: Russian-Jewish, French, Irish, and German, and mixed-race. 27 Years later she spoke of despisingnationalistic attitudes and resented being narrowly categorized as an “American” artist—a point of view that must come from her early experiences with various cultures and her awareness of bias against minorities.
    At Cooper Union, Krasner kept her eye on her professional goal. Soon after her introductory courses, she advanced to Drawing from the Antique and Fashion Design. Drawing from the Antique entailed working with plaster casts of Greek and Roman works. The students focused on drawing the human head and figure, and in the afternoons they drew in color. Lectures were required on anatomy, perspective, and the history of art.
    The first term had been an awkward time for Lee, but then her prowess started being recorded not only on her transcript but also in the school paper, which listed some two dozen women who had their drawings “hung at the monthly exhibition,” Krasner’s among them. 28
    Given the school’s vocational agenda, it is hardly surprising that Krasner quickly made a name for herself as a fine artist. By December she obtained admission to the life drawing class, for which one had to earn admission by submitting satisfactory drawings, usually in the third year. She was only in the second term of her first year. In the mornings the students drew from life, and in the afternoons they painted from life in oil. The course stressed posing, arrangement, and lighting. That December too the newspaper’s women’s column reported Krasner as one of the “girls who have had work on exhibition for December.” 29 She also took Oil Painting—Portrait and art history, which was a required lecture course.
    Krasner’s work was among those chosen by a designer for the Famous Players–Lasky Corporation, who visited