Photo Record
Images
Metadata
Photographer |
Wilfrid Zogbaum (1915-1965) |
Title |
Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock |
Date |
1949 |
Medium |
Silver print photograph |
Print size |
14 x 15 in. (sight) |
Description |
The son of a US Navy admiral, Wilfrid Zogbaum was born in Newport, Rhode Island. He studied at the Rhode Island School of Design and attended the Yale School of Art for one year before dropping out and moving to New York City. There he studied with Hans Hofmann and became a member of the American Abstract Artists. He won a Guggenheim Fellowship, traveled to Europe, and met artists Ben Nicholson and Wassily Kandinsky. When he arrived back in New York, Zogbaum painted independently for two years before joining the US Army as a photographer during World War II. After the war, he became a successful commercial photographer in New York. Zogbaum first visited Pollock and Krasner in Springs in 1948. The following year, he photographed them in the studio and on the grounds. In this charming portrait, which was taken during Pollock's period of sobriety, Krasner holds a bunch of daisies picked from their garden. Relaxed in the presence of an old friend, they smile warmly, indicating the pleasure they took in cultivating the garden and in one another's company. In the 1950s Zogbaum purchased land for a house and studio nearby, and later sold parcels to fellow artists John Ferren and Willem de Kooning. It was on Zogbaum's property that the first artists and writers softball game was held--a pickup affair that has grown to become a celebrity-studded annual fundraiser for local charities. In East Hampton he began to create sculpture, often incorporating rocks, which were dubbed Zogstones, that he found on local beaches. Sadly, his career was cut short by his early death from leukemia. This posthumous print was made in 1995 for an exhibition at the Kunsthalle, Dusseldorf, which donated it to the Pollock-Krasner House. |
Catalog Number |
1996.001 |
Object Name |
Photograph |