Lee Krasner by Gail Levin Page A

portrait and other painting, and the teaching of art. At the end of her life, Krasner reminisced: “I do recall Cooper Union having the most magnificent Cooper-Hewitt Museum available to us, just one flight below our classrooms—what an enormous treat.” 4 The collection, now relocated, emphasized architecture and the decorative arts.
    But another memory was less approbatory. “I also particularly remember the separation of the men and women, even with separate entrances. We never crossed paths!” 5 The Union’s main men’s division was an engineering school, although art classes for men were given during the evenings. Krasner never approved of separation by gender, yet, at the time, she had no other options. Typically only about two dozen women graduated in a given year. 6 The small number of graduates resulted from women dropping out because they could not produce acceptable work, as well as those who dropped out because they chose to get married, had to take a paying job, or wanted to pursue study at another school, as Krasner eventually did.
    Cooper Union’s emphasis on businesslike careers in the arts for women initially made it a good fit for the ambitious Krasner. The school stressed learning the craft and techniques of art, and the women’s course of study was rather rigidly prescribed. Like herclassmates, Krasner began studying elementary drawing, which involved drawing from simple forms and from casts of ornaments, torsos, feet, and hands. She was also enrolled in General Drawing, which was an afternoon class open to all, and portrait painting.
    Despite Krasner’s previous training, her teacher for elementary drawing, sculptor and mural painter Charles Louis Hinton, still judged her work as “messy.” Hinton had been a pupil of Will Hicok Low at the National Academy of Design in New York; he had also studied in Paris with Gérôme and Bouguereau, who were famous academicians in the 1890s. Hinton’s course emphasized “drawing from simple forms and casts of ornaments, blocked hands, feet, etc. Also special elementary preparation for Decorative Design and Interior Decoration for students intending to study those branches.” 7 Krasner, however, aimed to become a “fine artist,” not a “decorative artist,” and resisted this practical curriculum.
    A muralist and an illustrator for children’s books, Hinton was trying to maintain old-fashioned academic taste at a time when modern art was beginning to make its way into public consciousness. 8 He could not tolerate Krasner’s independent spirit and casual attitudes. And for her part, this resistance came at significant risk. Students were subject to close supervision, and anyone not making fair progress was subject to dismissal. In order to advance from elementary drawing, the lowest class, a student had to advance—and that was subject to the teacher’s judgment. 9
    Krasner later recounted how Hinton’s course was divided into alcoves: “The first alcove, you did hands and feet of casts, the second the torso, and third, the full figure, and then you were promoted to life. Well I got stuck in the middle alcove somewhere in the torso and Mr. Hinton at one point, in utter despair and desperation, said more or less what the high school teacher had said, ‘I’m going to promote you to life, not because you deserve it, but because I can’t do anything with you.’ And so I got into life.” 10
    In May Cooper Union awarded Krasner a certificate statingthat she “has successfully completed the work prescribed for the class in Elementary Drawing.” She had registered as “Lena Krasner” but managed to have them put on her certificate “Lenore,” the first name that she had chosen for herself. 11
    Free from Hinton’s strictures, Krasner began the fall term as one of 312 woman students. 12 Since almost all of the teachers at Cooper