BARBARA ROSE
87
Krishnamurti. All of which happened long before I met him. By the
time I had met him, he had been in Jungian analysis, which had a
mythic basis.
Barbara Rose:
Did he know anything about Indian legends actually?
Lee Krasner:
He used to relate how his father took him on tri ps where
they used
to
see where the Indians used to live, so he must have had
some contact back there. How much he knew of the myths, I don't
know. He had the Smithsonian books on the American Indi an. I
think there were twelve volumes of that, and since he had them I
assume he had read them. In there, he could have dug out myths, if
he didn 't know of them prior to that.
Barbara Rose:
Pollock's actual materials-his brushes, paints, etc. –
where did he get them? And did he prefer a certain range of co lor?
L ee Krasner:
He preferred house painter's brushes, ra ther than fin e art
brushes. He indulged in materials very heavily. That is to say for
drawings, he had the most fantasti c collection of pens I had ever
seen. He would go into Rosenthal's art supply store before we moved
out to Springs and would pick out every new form of pen that would
come out. With regard to color, he started at some point in the late
forti es to use commercial paints. I don 't know why. He never
explained why.
Barbara Rose:
You didn't have plastic paints yet. No matter how you
thinned oil down you could never get the liquidity of enamel or
house paint.
Lee Krasner:
Exactly. I think that had more to do with his decision in
getting commercial paint. He could do what he wanted to do with it.
He also at one point got Du Pont to make up very special paints for
him, and special thinners that were not turpentine. I don't know
what it was.
Barbara Rose:
Do you remember how he got in touch with the paint
chemist?
L ee Krasner:
I don ' t remember, but at the time the painting Rockefell er
owned was burned, the restorer got in touch with me, and I had to go
to the studio and write it out so they could contact the Du Pont
people and find out precisely how to deal with it.
Barbara Rose:
What were these special paints that Du Pont developed
for Pollock?
Lee Krasner:
I don 't know. I simply gave them the name of the paints
and asked them
to
be in touch with Du Pont's chemists to find out.
Barbara Rose:
During the period, when Pollock was doing the "drip"
