Millions for Pollock-Krasner

    The Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in Springs will share in nearly $3.66 million raised from the Stars of Stony Brook Gala held on April 25 at Chelsea Piers in New York City. The money the benefit raised includes funds for student scholarships at the State University at Stony Brook.

    The center on Springs-Fireplace Road, which was the house and studio of Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner, is in the process of a capital campaign to build an endowment, coinciding with the 100th anniversary of Pollock’s birth.

The endowment will help support the house and study center efforts to further its programs and preservation. The property includes a barn that was converted into Pollock’s studio, where he painted some of his most famous drip paintings. The remnants of the poured and splattered paint from those works can still be seen on the studio floor. After Pollock’s death, Krasner took over the space and then painted some of her most significant work there.

    Late last year, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation announced a matching gift challenge of $1 million for the endowment, which has been met, according to the Stony Brook Foundation, a non-profit affiliate of Stony Brook University, which owns the site. The Pollock-Krasner Foundation is a separate entity set up by Krasner primarily to fund grants for artists.

    In addition, Samuel L. Stanley, president of Stony Brook University, announced at the gala that the Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw Charitable Trust will endow the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center directorship for $1.5 million.

    Finally, the school itself will receive $1.5 million as well from the James and Marilyn Simons Fund to support an endowed professorship for the study of Abstract Expressionism in Stony Brook’s art department.

    Ed Harris, who directed and starred in the film “Pollock,” was honored at the event along with the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and Charles C. Bergman, its chairman and chief executive officer.