She Did Not Know His Name: Met Pairs Krasner and Pollock for the First Time
Lee Krasner walked into Jackson Pollock's studio in 1941 because his was the only name she did not recognise on a group-show list.
They were dating by opening night.
That meeting opens the story behind Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The exhibition opens to the public on 4 October 2026 and runs to 31 January 2027 at The Met Fifth Avenue, according to the museum.
Curated by David Breslin and Brinda Kumar, it brings together more than 120 paintings, works on paper — drawings, prints and watercolours — and ephemera, the letters, photographs and printed scraps that surround a career. The checklist includes loans from private collections that are rarely shown in public, according to The Art Newspaper.
The museum says it is its first major exhibition devoted to either artist. Pollock lived from 1912 to 1956. Krasner lived from 1908 to 1984. It is also the first show to place their full careers side by side, and the first major New York presentation devoted to either in more than 20 years.
The display follows a biographical format, tracking the artist-couple through their lives and work, as noted in The New York Times. The subtitle comes from Krasner's 1976 mixed-media painting Past Continuous, made 20 years after Pollock died in a car crash. The painting combines paint with collage, cut and pasted pieces of her own much earlier drawings.
Pollock is represented by works including Autumn Rhythm: Number 30 from 1950, one of his drip paintings made by pouring and flicking paint onto canvas laid on the floor. Krasner is represented by works including Combat from 1965.
What makes this stand out for a first-time visitor is the scale. Two working lives hang in one place. You can follow the thread without prior reading.
Members and Patrons were invited to preview the show on 1 October from 10am to 5pm. Two films, Jackson Pollock 51 and Lee Krasner: The Long View, will screen in full at the museum on 23 January 2027, according to museum listings.
