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Speaker 1: Pushkin. It's nineteen eighty six, about three decades after Jackson's death.

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Speaker 1: On a cold winter's day on the Upper West Side,

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Speaker 1: a woman called Maris has been sitting in a parks

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Speaker 1: car watching a house. She's on a steakout, a steakout

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Speaker 1: of her very own home.

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Speaker 2: Kind of alternative utopian community hidden in plain sight.

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Speaker 1: That's Alexander Stiller, who has just written a book about

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Speaker 1: this community.

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Speaker 2: You could drink as much as you want, you could

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Speaker 2: sleep as many people as you want. You didn't have

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Speaker 2: to feel guilty. Great, what's wrong with that?

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Speaker 1: But it had a darker side. The year before, Marius

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Speaker 1: had had a baby.

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Speaker 2: Three months after giving birth, she is told not to

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Speaker 2: your child at all because she's a smothering mother and

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Speaker 2: it's going to be a toxic influence on her daughter.

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Speaker 1: The kid was taken away from her, and now Maris

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Speaker 1: is parked outside the commune with two hired bodyguards waiting.

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Speaker 1: Finally she sees some movement. The front door opens and

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Speaker 1: out comes a pram in It is her baby daughter.

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Speaker 2: Eight bodyguards immobilize the babysitter and she takes the child

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Speaker 2: and off they go.

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Speaker 1: But what happened that day would have even bigger consequences.

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Speaker 1: It triggered the downfall of what had become a full

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Speaker 1: blow cult known as the Sullivanians.

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Speaker 3: And they literally had people living in communes. They were

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Speaker 3: controlling their behavior, who they could sleep with, all kinds

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Speaker 3: of things.

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Speaker 1: But it all started back in the mid fifties, not

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Speaker 1: as a cult, but as an alternative psychotherapy institute, and

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Speaker 1: one of its very first patients was Jackson Pollock.

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Speaker 2: Polock mis told don't worry about your drinking. Having affairs

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Speaker 2: and finding a new sex partner was a good idea.

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Speaker 3: Sending Jackson to a Salavanian therapist was the kiss of

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Speaker 3: death as far as I'm concerned.

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Speaker 1: I'm Katie Hessel, and this is death of an artist.

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Speaker 1: Krasner and Pollock Episode five, The Kiss of Death. Thirty

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Speaker 1: years earlier, on a summer afternoon in nineteen fifty five,

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Speaker 1: Lee Krasner was drinking black coffee in Springs with her

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Speaker 1: friend Clement Greenberg, the same table where eight years ago

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Speaker 1: they created Jackson Pollock inc. Now both Lee and Jackson

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Speaker 1: looked older, worn down.

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Speaker 2: The situation at the Polo Krasner house is disastrous. Pollock,

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Speaker 2: who had for a period of time been sober and

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Speaker 2: produced much of his best work in the late forties

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Speaker 2: and early fifties, has fallen off the wagon, is drinking heavily.

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Speaker 2: He is tearing into his wife, Lee Krasner, and they're

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Speaker 2: arguing day and night, and he's treating her very abusively.

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Speaker 1: Lee turned to their old friend Clement Greenberg for advice.

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Speaker 2: Green You're told Krasner like, you've got to do something.

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Speaker 2: You've got to get out of here. You're going to

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Speaker 2: kill each other if you keep this up.

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Speaker 1: He told her that he'd been having a hard time

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Speaker 1: himself recently, and that he'd started seeing a therapist, someone

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Speaker 1: a bit unusual, but it was really doing wonders for him,

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Speaker 1: and maybe Lean Jackson should give it a go. This

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Speaker 1: wasn't the first time Jackson tried to get sober. He'd

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Speaker 1: tried alcoholism, specialists, medication, and analysis, you name it. Jackson

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Speaker 1: had even made a series of drawings while working with

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Speaker 1: a Youngian therapist. They would become known as his psychoanalytic

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Speaker 1: Drawings and were later exhibited. So why not try again?

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Speaker 1: A few months later? One Tuesday in September nineteen fifty five,

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Speaker 1: Jackson was sitting in an office on the Upper West Side.

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Speaker 1: He was waiting for his first therapy session. Leeds started

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Speaker 1: seeing a therapist and Jackson had agreed to follow suit.

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Speaker 1: She hoped that it would tame his drinking, but Jackson

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Speaker 1: had other motivations. For some time now, he'd been in

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Speaker 1: an artistic rut. Six years ago, Life magazine had suggested

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Speaker 1: he might be America's greatest living painter, but in the

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Speaker 1: past few years he'd barely painted at all. Jackson wanted

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Speaker 1: his creative mojo back, and he was hoping this session

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Speaker 1: could be a start. Soon, a therapist breezed into the room,

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Speaker 1: introducing himself as Ralph Klein. He looked around thirty years old, handsome, He.

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Speaker 2: Had a kind of rugged good looks, and was more

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Speaker 2: international and more cosmopolitan than other therapists. He was Jewish

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Speaker 2: and ended up fleeing Austria during the Nazi persecution.

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Speaker 1: As Ralph began to explain his unique approach to therapy,

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Speaker 1: Jackson felt himself relax.

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Speaker 2: The traditional family was by definition limiting and suffocating.

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Speaker 1: This was at the heart of Ralph's worldview. Now this

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Speaker 1: probably doesn't seem that outlandish to you at all, but

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Speaker 1: remember this was the fifties, the sexual Revolution and hippie culture.

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Speaker 1: Of the sixties hadn't happened yet, so when Jackson heard

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Speaker 1: this idea, it was truly radical.

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Speaker 2: This alternative form of psychotherapy was all about breaking up

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Speaker 2: the nuclear family and exploring multiple possibilities as creative people.

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Speaker 1: This is not how Jackson thought this session would go.

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Speaker 2: The therapy aimed at separating its patients from their families.

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Speaker 1: And for Jackson this would mean two things.

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Speaker 2: The idea was that he would be a happier and

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Speaker 2: more creative person if he broke his ties.

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Speaker 1: With his mother and crucially with Lee.

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Speaker 2: He was told that having affairs and finding a new

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Speaker 2: sex partner was a good idea.

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Speaker 1: Lee had been his rock for fifteen years. She'd gotten

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Speaker 1: him out of some pretty ropy situations and had always

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Speaker 1: encouraged his work. But his therapist was telling him that

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Speaker 1: this is what he needed to do to get his

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Speaker 1: creative juices flowing again. And then came maybe the strangest

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Speaker 1: piece of advice.

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Speaker 2: Ralph Klein appears to have told Pollock, don't worry about

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Speaker 2: your drinking. Pollock was happy to be told that he

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Speaker 2: didn't have to stop drinking, and so he would tell people, Hey, look,

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Speaker 2: you know if I want to digital lye and go

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Speaker 2: drinking with the boys. There's nothing wrong with that. And

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Speaker 2: that's essentially what he was hearing from his therapist.

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Speaker 1: And so that's what Jackson does every Tuesday. After finishing therapy,

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Speaker 1: Jackson began to put Ralph's teachings into practice, and that

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Speaker 1: meant one thing, heading straight to a favorite haunt, a

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Speaker 1: dive bar called the Cedar Tavern.

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Speaker 2: He's getting ship faced drunk and carrying on and making

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Speaker 2: a spectacle and fighting with people and taking over the place.

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Speaker 2: This Tuesday night, It's a Jackson Pollock show.

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Speaker 1: Jackson would regurgitate what he'd heard in Ralph's living room hours.

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Speaker 2: Before he told people that he and his wife had

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Speaker 2: stopped having sex. He began propositioning women at the Cedar Tavern.

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Speaker 1: This is around the time he came on to Audrey Flack,

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Speaker 1: the artist you heard back in episode one.

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Speaker 4: And then he started becoming close to me, and then

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Speaker 4: he brought two belch and then he was embarrassed and

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Speaker 4: he tried to pinch my behind.

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Speaker 1: Night after night, Jackson sat at the bar drinking whiskey

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Speaker 1: and beer.

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Speaker 2: He was of somewhat angry drunk and would you know,

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Speaker 2: and saw people in break clads.

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Speaker 1: One time Jackson was slumped over finishing his final whiskey.

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Speaker 1: He smashed the glass onto the table, shattering it into

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Speaker 1: shards in between his fingers.

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Speaker 2: His blood dripping from his hands onto the surface of

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Speaker 2: the table, like a kind of parody of his own

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Speaker 2: painting process.

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Speaker 1: Jackson had been spending more and more time in New

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Speaker 1: York City and less and less time at home in Springs,

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Speaker 1: less time with Lee. These last few months lead been

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Speaker 1: in Springs trying to paint Once. She'd have been grateful

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Speaker 1: to have all this time to herself to focus on

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Speaker 1: her own art. She actually had a show coming up,

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Speaker 1: and she was excited, but she just couldn't concentrate. All

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Speaker 1: she could think about was where the hell Jackson was

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Speaker 1: a few months later, on a hot morning in July

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifty six, Lee was walking up her driveway when

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Speaker 1: she saw Jackson's mint green convertible. This is Mary Gabriel,

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Speaker 1: author of Ninth Street Women.

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Speaker 5: Lee and Jackson were still living together, but their lives

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Speaker 5: were completely separate socially and artistically. The relationship was existing

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Speaker 5: and fumes.

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Speaker 1: As Lee walked past the car, something caught her eye,

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Speaker 1: an elegant scarf. It definitely wasn't hers, Lee snatched it,

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Speaker 1: marched into the house, and laid down the scarf in

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Speaker 1: front of Jack Jackson.

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Speaker 5: She confronted Jackson and asked who had belonged to and

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Speaker 5: what was going on.

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Speaker 1: Slurring his words, he said that the scarf belonged to

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Speaker 1: another woman, a woman he'd been sleeping with, and then

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Speaker 1: more proudly, he said it was necessary for his creative potential.

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Speaker 1: Hearing this, Lee felt something break inside her.

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Speaker 5: She had sacrificed her life literally to keep him, saying,

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Speaker 5: to keep him sober, to keep him working, and now

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Speaker 5: he had thrown their relationship to the wayside in favor

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Speaker 5: of this young woman.

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Speaker 1: Jackson had met Ruth Kligmann at the Cedar one night.

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Speaker 1: She was an aspiring artist who just moved to the city,

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Speaker 1: and they'd been dating all summer.

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Speaker 5: No way, Lee Krasner, as fierce as she was, as

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Speaker 5: defensive as she was of her own life, of Jackson's life,

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Speaker 5: was going to share it with a young woman.

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Speaker 1: And so she took a breath and composed herself.

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Speaker 5: Lee presented him with an ultimatum, get rid of her

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Speaker 5: or stay with me.

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Speaker 1: A few days later, Lee woke up early alone in

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Speaker 1: the house.

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Speaker 5: As Lee came out on the porch in the back

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Speaker 5: of the house which faced the barn, dressed in her bathrobe.

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Speaker 5: She saw Pollock and Ruth emerge from the barn run

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Speaker 5: across the yard hand in hand, giggling. The raid she

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Speaker 5: felt was so intense she couldn't control herself. She shouted

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Speaker 5: at Jackson, get her off my property.

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Speaker 1: With a smug still on his face, his arms still

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Speaker 1: around Ruth, Jackson shouted, first.

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Speaker 5: Of all, this isn't your property, and second, stop being

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Speaker 5: a goddamn ass.

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Speaker 1: Lee must have felt all the wind go out of her.

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Speaker 5: The drunken fool she saw with a giggling young woman

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Speaker 5: on his arm was not the man she loved or respected.

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Speaker 1: The rage had gone, and in its place came something worse.

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Speaker 5: Her fighting spirit, by this point had been totally destroyed.

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Speaker 5: There hurt, the agony, the pain that Lee felt at

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Speaker 5: that moment, seeing that act of disloyalty and that cruelty

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Speaker 5: from a man she had supported with her whole being,

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Speaker 5: shook her to her core. Lee quite frankly didn't know

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Speaker 5: where to go from there.

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Speaker 1: But what Lee did know is that she couldn't stay

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Speaker 1: there any longer, and in just a matter of days,

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Speaker 1: Lee would be on a boat to Paris. While she

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Speaker 1: was there, she got the phone call that would change everything.

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Speaker 5: Her host answered the phone and didn't say anything, but

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Speaker 5: she could tell by the stricken look on his face

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Speaker 5: that something terrible had happened. Without knowing any of the

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Speaker 5: words on the other end of the phone, Lee knew

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Speaker 5: exactly what had happened, and she shouted out, Jackson's dead.

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Speaker 1: When Lee heard the news of her husband's death, she

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Speaker 1: immediately came back to New York. She spent the next

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Speaker 1: weeks and months organizing a funeral, taking phone calls, and

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Speaker 1: helping to put on a big show of his work

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Speaker 1: at the Museum of Modern Art. The art world was

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Speaker 1: mourning its hero.

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Speaker 4: Oh my god, the whole world stopped, well, the whole

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Speaker 4: art world stopped.

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Speaker 5: He was the center of their world, and now he

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Speaker 5: was gone.

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Speaker 4: You know, everybody called each other. It was electrifying, like

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Speaker 4: a spark went out. Everybody was shocked and sad and depressed.

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Speaker 1: Lee had helped everyone else grieve, but had barely begun

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Speaker 1: to process his death herself.

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Speaker 6: She was devastated by Jackson's death. No sooner does she

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Speaker 6: leave him on his own than he self destructs.

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Speaker 1: This is Helen Harrison again, who managed the polk Krasna House.

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Speaker 6: I mean, what could be worse. You've been nurturing this

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Speaker 6: alcoholic all these years, and then you finally take a

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Speaker 6: break and that's it.

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Speaker 1: One day in the summer of nineteen fifty seven, Lee

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Speaker 1: found herself in the barn at Springs. I can imagine

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Speaker 1: her looking at the vast space she'd renovated with Jackson

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Speaker 1: to give him room to paint, where he created the

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Speaker 1: work that had made his name.

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Speaker 6: Some of her friends have told me that they thought

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Speaker 6: that she would have sold this place after that happened,

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Speaker 6: because of the bad associations and everything.

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Speaker 1: Lee's eyes drifted down to a roll of canvas that

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Speaker 1: she'd brought from the house. All the time they'd lived there,

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Speaker 1: she kept making art, but mainly in their tiny spare

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Speaker 1: bedroom the barn had always been Jackson's. Lee started unraveling

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Speaker 1: the canvas and taped it up on the longest wall,

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Speaker 1: the only place it would fit. It was huge, seventeen

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Speaker 1: by eight feet of endless possibility. Lee stad at it

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Speaker 1: and found herself thinking what could she create. She picked

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Speaker 1: up a brush, dipped it in one of the cans,

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Speaker 1: and heard a voice inside her.

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Speaker 6: Say now it's my turn.

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Speaker 1: Lee moved the brush from one side of the canvas

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Speaker 1: to the other, making sweeping, curving strokes.

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Speaker 6: It's much larger than the studio she had upstairs. Really

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Speaker 6: gave her a scope to spread out what she had

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Speaker 6: always wanted to do but never had the opportunity to do.

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Speaker 1: She'd never done anything on this scale before. It was

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Speaker 1: as if she was painting with her whole body for

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Speaker 1: the first time.

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Speaker 6: For her, it was a way of claiming the space

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Speaker 6: and also just physically able to work so much larger

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Speaker 6: and with so much more energy.

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Speaker 1: Lee was using earthy greens and deep reds, creating a

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Speaker 1: swirling mass of plant and flower forms.

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Speaker 6: You know what, we expect a woman in mourning to

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Speaker 6: paint dark, maybe angry pictures, maybe things how negative. No,

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Speaker 6: she pets these beautiful, bright, colorful, upbeat pictures that she

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Speaker 6: later called her happy pictures.

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Speaker 1: Lee felt like she was in a trance. She barely

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Speaker 1: even noticed the shape she was making.

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Speaker 6: While she's painting them. She wasn't even seeing them because

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Speaker 6: her eyes were filled with tears.

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Speaker 1: Until this moment, Lee couldn't see how she could ever

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Speaker 1: move on after Jackson's death. But here in the bond,

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Speaker 1: just simply painting. She felt like she could handle anything,

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Speaker 1: like maybe this could be a new beginning.

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Speaker 6: It seems to me that she was working in spite

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Speaker 6: of her grief. She was working over her grief and

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Speaker 6: overcoming it through her art.

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Speaker 1: From that moment on, Lee would contain, I knew to

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Speaker 1: paint on a scale and at a rate she never had.

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Speaker 6: Before, and in her case what came out was a positive,

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Speaker 6: life affirming energy. How did she do that?

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Speaker 1: I think I know what Hella means here. Lee had

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Speaker 1: painted for thirty years, but for me, this is her

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Speaker 1: first real masterpiece. She ended up calling this particular painting

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Speaker 1: The Seasons. It's one of my favorite works of all time,

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Speaker 1: and it now hangs pride of place in the Whitney

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Speaker 1: Museum of American Art. Colossal green and red plant shapes

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Speaker 1: roll into each other, sometimes looking torturous, sometimes joyous, but

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Speaker 1: always changing, all about hope and renewal. After so many

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Speaker 1: years of supporting Jackson to find his artistic voice, Lee

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Speaker 1: was rediscovering her own. When Lee was later asked how

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Speaker 1: she was able to start painting so soon after Jackson's death,

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Speaker 1: she had a simple answer, quote, painting is not separate

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Speaker 1: from life. It is one. It is like asking do

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Speaker 1: I want to live? My answer is yes, and I

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Speaker 1: paint coming up. In the final episode.

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Speaker 7: Lee Krasner had two hundred dollars in her bank account.

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Speaker 7: There was nobody spending money on American abstract painting.

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Speaker 1: With cash tight. After Jackson's death, Lee sees a chance

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Speaker 1: to boost the price of one of his paintings.

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Speaker 7: In one fells who she reseaid the entire market, not

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Speaker 7: just Jackson Pollock's market, but the market for American abstract.

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Speaker 1: Painting, and Lee's own artistic career begins to take off

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Speaker 1: the most accomplished work of her career, extraordinary, lyrical, vibrant,

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Speaker 1: luscious paintings. That's next time on the season finale of

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Speaker 1: Death of an Artist. Death of an Artist Krasner and

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Speaker 1: Pollock is produced by Pushkin Industries and Samasdat Audio. Clem

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Speaker 1: Hitchcock is our producer. Story editing by Dasherlitz at Sina,

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Speaker 1: Sophie Crane and Karen Schakerji from Pushkin. The executive producer

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Speaker 1: is Jacob Smith from Samazdat Audio. The executive producers are

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Speaker 1: Dasherlitz at Sina and Joe Sykes. Sound design by Peregrin Andrews.

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Speaker 1: Original scoring and our theme were composed by Martin Austwick.

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Speaker 1: Fact checking by Arthur Gompertz. Special thanks to Jacob Weissberg.

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Speaker 1: I'm Katie hessel daaaaaaaa.