Today, October 4, 2026, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York opens the exhibition Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous - the first time the museum has devoted an exhibition to either artist, and the first time their complete bodies of work have been shown side by side. For anyone who thinks of a poster of abstract art on the wall, this is an unusual opportunity: we'll see how two of the 20th century's most talked-about painters actually worked, and why one long remained in the other's shadow.
Quick facts: Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous runs from October 4, 2026 to January 31, 2027, at The Met. The exhibition features more than 120 paintings, works on paper, and documents from over 80 lenders, arranged across twelve chapters. Lee Krasner (1908-1984) and Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) met in 1941 and married in 1945. The curator in charge is David Breslin, and the museum director is Max Hollein.
She had the studio, he had the barn: what the Met's twelve chapters do to the Pollock myth
For decades, the story of Pollock has been the story of a man: the drips, the barn in Springs, the car accident in 1956. Krasner has often been cast as the one who stood beside him. The exhibition's layout tries to turn that around. According to Artprice, the exhibition alternates between galleries devoted to one artist, showing their work on its own, and direct encounters where works from the same period are set against each other. The point isn't a love story but two artistic careers that developed alongside each other.
Breslin sums up the starting point this way: both found a partner who insisted that art came before life. After Pollock's death, Krasner took over the barn. According to Breslin, quoted in Art Newspaper, she had had a smaller studio, while he had the barn - and when she took it over, she began making her large paintings. It's a practical detail that explains a lot: a larger space makes bigger brushstrokes and larger-scale works possible.
"Pollock gave the 20th century the gesture, but it was Krasner who proved that the gesture could be repeated, rebuilt, and turned into an artistic practice."
Little Images versus drip: two ways to cover a canvas without a center
Both artists worked with what is known as all-over composition - an image without a clear main subject, where the eye isn't drawn to one place but moves across the entire surface. Pollock did this by dripping and pouring paint from above onto a canvas on the floor. Krasner did it in what are known as the Little Images, a series from the 1940s featuring dense, code-like marks arranged in grids, often seeming almost written rather than painted.
It is an interesting difference. Pollock’s works are read as energy: you feel the movement. Krasner’s are read as structure: you see the layers. The Met’s selection includes Pollock’s Stenographic Figure from 1942 and Guardians of the Secret from 1943 - two works in which signs and figures are still present - before he breaks free of them in the great drips of Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist). In 1949, LIFE Magazine asked whether he was America’s greatest living painter, and the question mark quickly faded.
Both also had teachers who explain a lot. Krasner studied with Hans Hofmann (1880–1966), who taught push and pull, the tension between fields of color. Pollock studied with Thomas Hart Benton (1889–1975), a figurative regionalist. That they both eventually turned to abstraction is therefore less obvious than it may seem: neither arrived there in a straight line.
Among Pollock’s works from the following years, Art Newspaper mentions Autumn Rhythm: Number 30 from 1950 and Easter and the Totem from 1953, while Artsy also highlights The Deep from the same year. The three show that Pollock did not stand still after his breakthrough: in The Deep, often described as black, white, and ochre, the dense swirl of color has given way to an almost open picture plane. This is one reason the exhibition does not end with the drip period, but follows him through to 1956, when a car accident cut his career short.
Krasner worked differently from the romanticized image of the artist as a flash of genius. She collected, cut, and reused. According to Artsy, she made collages from paper and canvas from earlier works, which can be understood as a kind of archival practice - a way of never throwing anything away. For anyone choosing a poster, this means something tangible: her motifs often have several layers to discover, making them more rewarding over time.
Krasner after 1956: Umber and Earth Green, Combat and Past Continuous
After Pollock’s death in 1956, Krasner’s art developed in a way that the exhibition’s title points to. Past Continuous is the title of her 1976 painting, but it is also a grammatical term: a form that describes something that began in the past and is still ongoing. Krasner reused her own past as raw material, which makes the title especially fitting.
Works such as The Eye Is the First Circle (1960), Combat (1965), and Rising Green (1972) span three decades, alongside the Umber and Earth Green series from the 1950s and 60s. Together, they show that Krasner never stopped changing her style. Krasner worked for nearly six decades, which is one of the exhibition's key points: she had a long career, he had a short one.
The market caught up: why 2026 is the right year to see Krasner for yourself
The prices speak for themselves. According to Artprice, Krasner has appeared at auction 298 times and ranked as the world's 223rd best-selling artist in 2025. Her auction record is The Eye Is the First Circle, which sold for $11,654,000 at Sotheby's in New York on May 16, 2019. At the same time, according to the curators, she managed Pollock's legacy and market after his death - meaning she was working with two artistic careers at once all along.
It's easy to see the exhibition as a corrective. In that sense, it's part of a broader reassessment of female abstract pioneers, including Swedish artist Hilma af Klint - an artist whose works, as you can read about in our guide to Hilma af Klint, were painted several years before the breakthrough of international abstract art.
Abstract Expressionism at home: format, distance, and framing for art without a center
Art without a center calls for different placement than a portrait. Since the eye isn't drawn to a single point, the piece benefits from a little distance - at least one and a half times the image's width - so you can take in the whole surface at once. A 50x70 poster therefore needs nearly a meter, while a 70x100 works best where you can step back two meters. This makes abstract pieces especially well suited to living rooms, hallways with a little depth, and bedrooms where you can see the image from bed.
Tips: If you're hanging an abstract piece with a dense structure, such as one of Krasner's grid paintings, the frame should be simple. A narrow black or oak-colored frame is enough, so the lines remain the main focus. You can remove the mat entirely if the image is meant to extend to the edge.
In terms of color, you can let the image guide the rest of the room. An image with earthy tones - burnt umber, ochre, moss green - works against a limewashed or beige background, while bold black-and-white contrasts suit rooms with lots of straight lines and gray. If you'd like to learn more about how abstract art works in different rooms, you'll find a complete overview in the guide to abstract posters, and if you're curious about why abstract art feels so personal, you can read the research on the viewer's contribution.
If you'd like to see other color field painters in the same tradition, explore the Rothko collection, whose color fields belong to the same postwar tradition. Also explore the full selection of artworks by famous artists for a wider range of classic works in poster format.
Three composition types to choose from
The dense web - layer upon layer, with no gaps - suits large surfaces and gives the room a strong sense of weight. The grid-based composition, like Krasner's Little Images, suits hallways and home offices where you want a sense of order. The color field, with a few large areas, is the calmest option and works best when the rest of the room already has a lot of pattern.
You don't have to choose just one image, either. A combination of two abstract posters in the same size but with different color palettes - one dark and one light - creates a dialogue that echoes the exhibition's own idea: two approaches working alongside one another, without either dominating.
How to find abstract art that stands the test of time
The exhibition also offers a practical lesson for anyone who wants to hang abstract art at home: you don't have to choose between energy and order. Pollock and Krasner show that you can live with both, and that the same room can accommodate an image with movement and one with structure, as long as they serve different purposes. Let one be the room's focal point and the other a quieter companion, for example in the hallway or above a dresser.
There is a classic test for abstract art: can you stand in front of it for ten minutes without getting bored? Works built around movement (like Pollock's) can feel calming after a few weeks, as your eye gets used to them. Works built around structure (like Krasner's), on the other hand, reward repeated viewing because you keep finding new details. Keep this in mind when choosing: the image you're a little unsure about on the first day is often the one that lasts the longest.
If you'd like to learn more about the exhibition, there are two useful sources. The Art Newspaper describes how their relationship influenced their art in its review, and Artsy provides an overview of the works and sections in its preview article.
Frequently asked questions about Krasner, Pollock, and abstract art
Want to bring a New York School tradition into your everyday life? Explore our abstract posters – and if you're looking for pioneers who worked with color and form before them, discover the Hilma af Klint collection. Find an image that feels right from day one, and let it grow on you through the rest of winter.