The Studio

Originally built to store fishing equipment, the barn studio once stood directly behind the house. To open the view to Accabonac Creek, Pollock had the barn moved before converting it into a studio. In this modest building, without heat or electricity, he painted his most famous poured paintings. He preferred to lay the canvas on the floor and walk around it, applying liquid paint from all four sides in a process of spontaneous creativity.
 
The studio floor is marked with the evidence of Pollock's process. This living artifact documents the evolution of Autumn Rhythm, Convergence, Blue Poles, and many of his other masterpieces painted between 1946 and 1952. 
 
After 1952, the studio was renovated and winterized. During this process, the floor was covered with a new surface, which protected the colors and gestures that had spilled over the edges of Pollock's canvases. That covering was removed in 1987, revealing the evidence of Pollock’s most productive and innovative years.
 
After Pollock’s death in 1956, Lee Krasner began to use the barn studio herself, relocating from her bedroom studio, and would work there for the rest of her life. Krasner preferred to tack her canvases to the walls, where the lively gestures and brilliant colors found in her expressive abstractions, including Gaea, Portrait in Green, and Memory of Love, are still visible.