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Paul Jackson Pollock (January 28, 1912 – August 11, 1956), known as
Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the
abstract expressionist movement. He was well known for his unique style of
drip painting.
During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety,
a major artist of his generation. Regarded as reclusive, he had a
volatile personality, and struggled with
alcoholism for most of his life. In 1945, he married the artist
Lee Krasner, who became an important influence on his career and on his legacy.
Pollock died at the age of 44 in an alcohol-related, single-car
accident; he was driving. In December 1956, several months after his
death, Pollock was given a memorial
retrospective exhibition at the
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in
New York City.
A larger, more comprehensive exhibition of his work was held there in
1967. In 1998 and 1999, his work was honored with large-scale
retrospective exhibitions at MoMA and at The
Tate in London.
In 2000, Pollock was the subject of the film
Pollock, directed by and starring
Ed Harris, which won an
Academy Award.
Living inside a Pollock
Early life
Pollock was born in
Cody, Wyoming, in 1912,
the youngest of five sons. His parents, Stella May (McClure) and LeRoy Pollock, grew up in
Tingley, Iowa.
His father had been born with the surname McCoy but took the surname of
his adoptive parents, neighbors who adopted him after his own parents
had died within a year of each other. Stella and LeRoy Pollock were
Presbyterian; they were of
Irish and
Scots-Irish descent, respectively.
LeRoy Pollock was a farmer and later a land surveyor for the government, moving for different jobs.
Jackson grew up in
Arizona and
Chico, California.
While living in
Echo Park, California, he enrolled at Los Angeles'
Manual Arts High School,
from which he was expelled. He already had been expelled in 1928 from
another high school. During his early life, Pollock explored
Native American culture while on surveying trips with his father.
In 1930, following his older brother
Charles Pollock, he moved to New York City, where they both studied under
Thomas Hart Benton at the
Art Students League.
Benton's rural American subject matter had little influence on
Pollock's work, but his rhythmic use of paint and his fierce
independence were more lasting.
From 1938 to 1942, during the
Great Depression, Pollock worked for the
WPA Federal Art Project.
Trying to deal with his established
alcoholism, from 1938 through 1941 Pollock underwent
Jungian psychotherapy
with Dr. Joseph Henderson and later with Dr. Violet Staub de Laszlo in
1941-1942. Henderson engaged him through his art, encouraging Pollock to
make drawings. Jungian concepts and archetypes were expressed in his
paintings.
Recently historians have hypothesized that Pollock might have had
bipolar disorder.
The Springs period and his technique
Pollock signed a gallery contract with
Peggy Guggenheim in July 1943. He received the commission to create
Mural (1943), which measures roughly 8 feet tall by 20 feet long,
for the entry to her new townhouse. At the suggestion of her friend and advisor
Marcel Duchamp,
Pollock painted the work on canvas, rather than the wall, so that it
would be portable. After seeing the big mural, the art critic
Clement Greenberg
wrote: "I took one look at it and I thought, 'Now that's great art,'
and I knew Jackson was the greatest painter this country had produced."
Marriage and family
In October 1945, Pollock married the American painter
Lee Krasner. In November they moved out of the city to the
Springs area of
East Hampton on the south shore of
Long Island.
With the help of a down-payment loaned by Peggy Guggenheim, they bought
a wood-frame house and barn at 830 Springs Fireplace Road. Pollock
converted the barn into a studio. In that space, he perfected his big
"drip" technique of working with paint, with which he would become
permanently identified.
Pollock was introduced to the use of liquid paint in 1936 at an experimental workshop in New York City by the Mexican muralist
David Alfaro Siqueiros. He later used paint pouring as one of several techniques on canvases of the early 1940s, such as
Male and Female and
Composition with Pouring I.
After his move to Springs, he began painting with his canvases laid out
on the studio floor, and he developed what was later called his "
drip" technique.
He started using synthetic resin-based paints called
alkyd
enamels, which, at that time, was a novel medium. Pollock described
this use of household paints, instead of artist’s paints, as "a natural
growth out of a need".
He used hardened brushes, sticks, and even basting syringes as paint
applicators. Pollock's technique of pouring and dripping paint is
thought to be one of the origins of the term
action painting.
With this technique, Pollock was able to achieve a more immediate means
of creating art, the paint now literally flowing from his chosen tool
onto the canvas. By defying the convention of painting on an upright
surface, he added a new dimension by being able to view and apply paint
to his canvases from all directions.
A possible influence on Pollock was the work of the
Ukrainian American artist
Janet Sobel (1894–1968) (born Jennie Lechovsky).
Peggy Guggenheim included Sobel's work in her
The Art of This Century Gallery in 1945. With Jackson Pollock, the critic
Clement Greenberg saw Sobel's work there in 1946.
In his essay "American-Type Painting," Greenberg noted those works were the first of
all-over painting he had seen, and said that "Pollock admitted that these pictures had made an impression on him".
While painting this way, Pollock moved away from figurative
representation, and challenged the Western tradition of using easel and
brush. He used the force of his whole body to paint, which was expressed
on the large canvases. In 1956,
Time magazine dubbed Pollock "Jack the Dripper," due to his painting style.
-
- My painting does not come from the easel. I prefer to tack the
unstretched canvas to the hard wall or the floor. I need the resistance
of a hard surface. On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more
part of the painting, since this way I can walk around it, work from the
four sides and literally be in the painting.
-
- I continue to get further away from the usual painter's tools such
as easel, palette, brushes, etc. I prefer sticks, trowels, knives and
dripping fluid paint or a heavy impasto with sand, broken glass or other foreign matter added.
-
- When I am in my painting, I'm not aware of what I'm doing. It
is only after a sort of 'get acquainted' period that I see what I have
been about. I have no fear of making changes, destroying the image,
etc., because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come
through. It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the
result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and
take, and the painting comes out well.
-
—Jackson Pollock, My Painting, 1956
-
-
Pollock observed
Indian sandpainting
demonstrations in the 1940s. Referring to his style of painting on the
floor, Pollock stated, “I feel nearer, more a part of the painting,
since this way I can walk round it, work from the four sides and
literally be in the painting. This is akin to the methods of the Indian
sand painters of the West.”
Other influences on his drip technique include the Mexican
muralists and
Surrealist
automatism. Pollock denied reliance on "the accident"; he usually had
an idea of how he wanted a particular piece to appear. His technique
combined the movement of his body, over which he had control, the
viscous flow of paint, the force of gravity, and the absorption of paint
into the canvas. It was a mixture of controllable and uncontrollable
factors. Flinging, dripping, pouring, and spattering, he would move
energetically around the canvas, almost as if in a dance, and would not
stop until he saw what he wanted to see.
In 1950,
Hans Namuth,
a young photographer, wanted to take pictures (both stills and moving)
of Pollock at work. Pollock promised to start a new painting especially
for the photographic session, but when Namuth arrived, Pollock
apologized and told him the painting was finished.
Namuth's said that when he entered the studio:
A dripping wet canvas covered the entire floor … There was complete
silence … Pollock looked at the painting. Then, unexpectedly, he picked
up can and paint brush and started to move around the canvas. It was as
if he suddenly realized the painting was not finished. His movements,
slow at first, gradually became faster and more dance like as he flung
black, white, and rust colored paint onto the canvas. He completely
forgot that Lee and I were there; he did not seem to hear the click of
the camera shutter … My photography session lasted as long as he kept
painting, perhaps half an hour. In all that time, Pollock did not stop.
How could one keep up this level of activity? Finally, he said 'This is
it.'
Pollock’s finest paintings… reveal that his all-over line does not give
rise to positive or negative areas: we are not made to feel that one
part of the canvas demands to be read as figure, whether abstract or
representational, against another part of the canvas read as ground.
There is not inside or outside to Pollock’s line or the space through
which it moves…. Pollock has managed to free line not only from its
function of representing objects in the world, but also from its task of
describing or bounding shapes or figures, whether abstract or
representational, on the surface of the canvas.
—Karmel, 132
In the 21st century, the physicists Richard Taylor, Micolich and
Jonas studied Pollock's works and technique. They determined that some
works display the properties of mathematical
fractals.
They assert that the works expressed more fractal qualities as Pollock progressed in his career.
The authors speculate that Pollock may have had an intuition of the nature of
chaotic motion, and tried to express mathematical chaos, more than ten years before "
Chaos Theory" was proposed. Their work was used in trying to evaluate the authenticity of some works that were represented as Pollock's.
Other contemporary experts have suggested that Pollock may have
imitated popular theories of the time in order to give his paintings a
depth not previously seen.
1950s
Pollock's most famous paintings were made during the "drip period"
between 1947 and 1950. He rocketed to fame following an August 8, 1949
four-page spread in
Life
magazine that asked, "Is he the greatest living painter in the United
States?" At the peak of his fame, Pollock abruptly abandoned the drip
style.
Pollock's work after 1951 was darker in color, including a collection
painted in black on unprimed canvases. He later returned to using color
and reintroduced figurative elements.
During this period, Pollock had moved to a more commercial gallery;
there was great demand for his work from collectors. In response to this
pressure, along with personal frustration, his
alcoholism deepened.
From naming to numbering
Continuing to evade the viewer's search for figurative elements in
his paintings, Pollock abandoned titles and started numbering his works.
He said about this: "...look passively and try to receive what the
painting has to offer and not bring a subject matter or preconceived
idea of what they are to be looking for". Pollock's wife,
Lee Krasner,
said Pollock "used to give his pictures conventional titles... but now
he simply numbers them. Numbers are neutral. They make people look at a
picture for what it is—pure painting."
Death
In 1955, Pollock painted
Scent and
Search, his last two paintings.
He did not paint at all in 1956, but was making sculptures at
Tony Smith’s home: constructions of wire, gauze, and plaster.
Shaped by sand-casting, they have heavily textured surfaces similar to what Pollock often created in his paintings.
On August 11, 1956, at 10:15 pm, Pollock died in a single-car crash in his
Oldsmobile
convertible while driving under the influence of alcohol. One of the
passengers, Edith Metzger, was also killed in the accident, which
occurred less than a mile from Pollock's home. The other passenger,
Ruth Kligman, an artist and Pollock's mistress, survived.
For the rest of her life, his widow
Lee Krasner
managed his estate and ensured that Pollock's reputation remained
strong despite changing art-world trends. The couple are buried in
Green River Cemetery in Springs with a large boulder marking his grave and a smaller one marking hers.
The
Pollock-Krasner House and Studio is owned and administered by the Stony Brook Foundation, a non-profit affiliate of
Stony Brook University. Regular tours of the house and studio occur from May through October.
A separate organization, the
Pollock-Krasner Foundation, was established in 1985. The Foundation functions as the official Estate for both Pollock and his widow
Lee Krasner, but also, under the terms of Krasner's will, serves "to assist individual working artists of merit with financial need".
The U.S. copyright representative for the Pollock-Krasner Foundation is the
Artists Rights Society (ARS).
Lee Krasner donated his papers in 1983 to the
Archives of American Art. They were later archived with Lee Krasner's papers. The
Archives of American Art
also houses the Charles Pollock Papers, which includes correspondence,
photographs, and other files relating to his brother Jackson Pollock.
Authenticity issues
In 2003, twenty-four Pollock-esque paintings and drawings were found in a locker in
Wainscott, New York. An inconclusive debate continues about whether or not these works are Pollock originals. Physicists have argued over whether
fractals
can be used to authenticate the paintings. This would require an
analysis of geometric consistency of the paint splatters in Pollock's
work at a microscopic level, and would be measured against the finding
that patterns in Pollock's paintings increased in complexity with time.
Analysis of the synthetic pigments shows that some were not patented
until the 1980s, and therefore that it is highly improbable that Pollock
could have used such paints.
In 2006 a documentary,
Who the *$&% Is Jackson Pollock?
was made concerning Teri Horton, a truck driver who in 1992 bought an
abstract painting for five dollars at a thrift store in California. This
work may be a lost Pollock painting but its authenticity is debated.
In pop culture and media
In 1960,
Ornette Coleman's album
Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation featured a Pollock painting as its cover artwork.
The British indie band
The Stone Roses were heavily influenced by Pollock; they have cover artwork made of pastiches of his work.
In the early 1990s, three groups of movie makers were developing
Pollock biographical projects, each based on a different source. The
project that at first seemed most advanced was a joint venture between
Barbra Streisand's Barwood Films and
Robert De Niro's
TriBeCa Productions (De Niro's parents were friends of Krasner and Pollock). The script, by Christopher Cleveland, was to be based on
Jeffrey Potter's 1985 oral biography,
To a Violent Grave,
a collection of reminiscences by Pollock's friends. Streisand was to
play the role of Lee Krasner, and De Niro was to portray Pollock.
A second was to be based on
Love Affair (1974), a memoir by
Ruth Kligman, who was Pollock's lover in the six months before his death. This was to be directed by
Harold Becker, with
Al Pacino playing Pollock.
In 2000, the biographical film
Pollock, based on the
Pulitzer Prize-winning biography,
Jackson Pollock: An American Saga, was released.
Marcia Gay Harden won the
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Lee Krasner. The movie was the project of
Ed Harris, who portrayed Pollock and directed it. He was nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Actor. The Pollock-Krasner Foundation did not authorize or collaborate with any production.
In September 2009, the art historian Henry Adams claimed in
Smithsonian Magazine that Pollock had written his name in his famous painting
Mural (1943)
The painting is now insured for $140 million. In 2011, the Republican Iowa State Representative
Scott Raecker
introduced a bill to force the sale of the artwork, held by The
University of Iowa, in order to fund scholarships, but his bill created
such controversy that it was quickly withdrawn.
Critical debate
Pollock's work has been the subject of important critical debates. The critic
Robert Coates once derided a number of Pollock’s works as “mere unorganized explosions of random energy, and therefore meaningless.”
In a famous 1952 article in
ARTnews,
Harold Rosenberg
coined the term "action painting," and wrote that "what was to go on
the canvas was not a picture but an event. The big moment came when it
was decided to paint 'just to paint.' The gesture on the canvas was a
gesture of liberation from value—political, aesthetic, moral." Many
people assumed that he had modeled his "action painter" paradigm on
Pollock.
Clement Greenberg
supported Pollock's work on formalistic grounds. It fit well with
Greenberg's view of art history as a progressive purification in form
and elimination of historical content. He considered Pollock's work as
the best painting of its day and the culmination of the Western
tradition via
Cubism and
Cézanne to
Manet.
Reynold's News in a 1959 headline said, "This is not art—it's a joke in bad taste."
The
Congress for Cultural Freedom, an organization to promote American culture and values, backed by the
CIA,
sponsored exhibitions of Pollock's work. Certain left-wing scholars,
most prominently Eva Cockcroft, have argued that the U.S. government and
wealthy elite embraced Pollock and abstract expressionism in order to
place the United States in the forefront of global art and devalue
socialist realism.
Cockcroft wrote that Pollock became a "weapon of the
Cold War".
