We’ve all heard of Jackson Pollock (1912-1956), with his swirling free-moving colourful paintings which it is astonishing to think were created 0ver 60 years ago.  Less known is Lee Krasner (1908-1984), the artist who married Pollock in 1945 – a relatively short marriage with Pollock dying in an alcohol-related car accident in 1956 when he was driving.   While they influenced each other, Krasner’s reputation obviously suffered by being under the shadow of her husband, but this has changed over the years and her work now commands high figures in auction in its own right.  Krasner continued to paint, experiment and change her style, living to the good age of 75.

The Barbican in London was an amazing piece of urban planning as London rebuilt itself after the Second World War, a town within a city with landscaped terraces connecting large blocks of housing built between 1965 and 1976, designed by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, in the days when architectural innovation and ambition was brought to new housing developments.  A little later, in 1982, the Barbican Centre was opened, with its concert hall, art galleries and other facilities

Designed in Brutalist style, the Barbican has now matured as the landscaping has grown and softened the hard concrete architecture.   Sadly, the more modern buildings you now see from the terraces have not necessarily complimented the architecture and landscaped spaces of the Barbican. Set against this concrete Brutalist architecture, the works of Lee Krasner – many of which are contemporary with the Barbican – filled the main gallery spaces with a major retrospective of her work ‘Living Colour’.