Art history is littered with stories of female artists dismissed as the lovers, muses or wives of the “great men” they lived with, from sculptor Camille Claudel, eclipsed by her relationship with Auguste Rodin, to the photographer-painter Dora Maar, by hers with Pablo Picasso.
Lee Krasner, regarded as Mrs Jackson Pollock for much of her lifetime, was another: a painter who was part of the momentous post-expressionist movement of the 1950s US. Her rancour at being so overshadowed is clear in Cian Griffin’s slowly intriguing play, situated 13 years after Pollock’s death (in a car crash, at the age of 44, while intoxicated), but so is her devotion to him, and her toughness.
