American, 1911–1985
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Happy Lady
oil on cotton duck, 1963
58 x 75 3/4 inches
Purchased with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts Museum. Purchase Grant and the Samuel and Alma Catsman Foundation, 1978.59
oil on cotton duck, 1963
58 x 75 3/4 inches
Purchased with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts Museum. Purchase Grant and the Samuel and Alma Catsman Foundation, 1978.59
artist info
Lee Krasner came of artistic age in the 1940s, during one of the most exciting times for art in the twentieth century. American artists at the time were breaking from artistic tradition by creating art that, rather than representing the natural world in a realistic manner, valued an abstract and individualistic approach.
Happy Lady was painted after a period of intense creativity following Krasner's slow recovery from the shock of the death of her husband Jackson Pollock, another famous Abstract Expressionist, in 1956. The name of the painting is not necessarily a reflection of her improved emotional state, however. "Happy Lady" was taken from a comment by a six-year-old girl who looked at the canvas and said, "There's a lady, and she's happy." When Krasner inquired why the lady was happy, the girl replied, "Don't you see she's dancing?" And in fact, the verve and energy of Happy Lady's execution can be seen as an abstract dancer or dance, with traces of the physical body moving through space.
Happy Lady was painted after a period of intense creativity following Krasner's slow recovery from the shock of the death of her husband Jackson Pollock, another famous Abstract Expressionist, in 1956. The name of the painting is not necessarily a reflection of her improved emotional state, however. "Happy Lady" was taken from a comment by a six-year-old girl who looked at the canvas and said, "There's a lady, and she's happy." When Krasner inquired why the lady was happy, the girl replied, "Don't you see she's dancing?" And in fact, the verve and energy of Happy Lady's execution can be seen as an abstract dancer or dance, with traces of the physical body moving through space.
