Pollock

The rebel hero of Abstract Expressionism, Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) careened through his life like a firework across the American art landscape. Channeling ideas from sources as diverse as Picasso and Mexican surrealism, he rejected convention to develop his own way of seeing, interpreting, and expressing . Pollock’s most famous works are his drip paintings , where he dripped and poured household enamel paint over the canvas with a variety of instruments, from sticks to syringes, hardened brushes to broken bits of glass . The splattered results pulsate with energy, replacing the refinement of easel and brush with something altogether more immediate, vivid, and physical . To evade the viewer’s search for figurative elements in his paintings, Pollock abandoned titles and identified each work with a neutral number only . Notoriously reclusive and volatile, struggling with alcoholism, married to fellow Abstract Expressionist Lee Krasner, and killed in a car crash aged just 44, Pollock is as much a compelling celebrity icon as an artistic pioneer. This essential artist introduction explores both his work and his fame to shed light on masterpieces of the modernist story , and the making of a cultural icon.

The rebel hero of Abstract Expressionism, Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) careened through his life like a firework across the American art landscape. Channeling ideas from sources as diverse as Picasso and Mexican surrealism, he rejected convention to develop his own way of seeing, interpreting, and expressing . Pollock’s most famous works are his drip paintings , where he dripped and poured household enamel paint over the canvas with a variety of instruments, from sticks to syringes, hardened brushes to broken bits of glass . The splattered results pulsate with energy, replacing the refinement of easel and brush with something altogether more immediate, vivid, and physical . To evade the viewer’s search for figurative elements in his paintings, Pollock abandoned titles and identified each work with a neutral number only . Notoriously reclusive and volatile, struggling with alcoholism, married to fellow Abstract Expressionist Lee Krasner, and killed in a car crash aged just 44, Pollock is as much a compelling celebrity icon as an artistic pioneer. This essential artist introduction explores both his work and his fame to shed light on masterpieces of the modernist story , and the making of a cultural icon.

"At the beginning, the canvas is white, void; then the cautious start, then the running of the paint from the pot onto the white of the surface..." Hans Namuth. Born in 1912, in a small town in Wyoming, Jackson Pollock embodied the American dream as the country found itself confronted with the realities of a modern era which was beginning to replace the fading nineteenth century. Like a storybook plot, Pollock left home in search of fame and fortune in New York City. Thanks to the Federal Art Project, he quickly won acclaim, and after the Second World War became the biggest art celebrity in America. For de Kooning, Pollock was the "icebreaker". For Max Ernst and André Masson, Pollock was a fellow member of the European surrealist movement. For Motherwell, Pollock was a legitimate candidate for the status of the Master of the American School. During the many upheavals in his life in New York in the 1950s and 1960s, Pollock lost his bearing - success had simply come too fast and too easily. It was during this period that he turned to alcohol and destroyed his marriage to Lee Krasner. Eventually, he achieved truly legendary status, ending his life like that other great star of the period, James Dean, killing himself after a night of drinking, behind the wheel of his Oldsmobile.