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Jackson Pollock
(1912-1956)
Jackson Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming to Scotch-Irish parents, he was dubbed "Jack the Dripper"
by "Time" magazine in 1956 because of his original technique of creating a gestural painting that would free
generations of American artists from many academic strictures. He used dissonant, garish colors, and he
would literally drip paint on his canvases in order to create his paintings. He developed this technique
through his experiments in abstract art in which he would use the canvas to convey, rather than illustrate,
feeling. His work would exude physical energy, as well as giving one a look into his own turbulent, manic
depressive personality.
Jackson Pollock is widely considered the most challenging and influential American artist of the 20th century.
"Life" magazine once called Pollock "the greatest living painter in the United States." He was also influenced
by surrealism and by Picasso and by the Mexican muralists David Siqueiros, Jose Orozco, and Diego Rivera.
Rivera known for his extensive use of symbolism that inspired Pollock to create in his large-scale paintings.
In the 1940s, his emotional turmoil would cause him to explore themes that were mythic and heroic in such
abstract styles that would include Cubism, Surrealist automatism, and Abstract Expressionism.
Pollock’s Greyed Rainbow (1953), gives us an example of his exploration of this turmoil.
In it one can experience the sensation of being swept into the illusion of a dizzying space in
which splashes of black and white coil and intertwine, retract and expand. The canvas is filled
with bold, black arabesques, which evolve into fishtails. In the lower third of the composition,
delicate colors emerge from this turmoil, much as a rainbow peeks through storm clouds.
With Jackson Pollock's work Number 27 (1950) it looks like it's design was accidental, or by chance.
But if one looks and studies it a very carefully constructed image can be seen, with a quite deliberate design to it.
Jackson Pollock was famous for placing the canvas on the floor of his studio. He would literally dance, as though in a trance,
as he created his masterpieces. then he moved around it, dripping and splattering the paint in layers, thus gradually
building up the surface. The work is itself is a map of Pollock's movement, a recording raw emotion.
An important turning point for Jackson Pollock in his gaining of public recognition would result from a friendship
he formed with Peggy Guggenheim, the wealthy New York heiress whose money built the Guggenheim Museum.
In 1943, she gave him an important solo exhibition and a contract that would provide him a monthly salary for a year.
Pollock experimented with abstract art in order to convey, instead of illustrate, feeling. He was also known as an
"action painter" because he would drip, pour, throw and splash his paint onto the large canvases which would be
placed flat on the floor of his studio. He would sometimes apply paint right out of the tube.
Jackson Pollock, like many fellow artists never made any serious money from his art. His work would start to suffer in
his later years because of his heavy drinking. At the time of his death in a car accident in 1956 he had stopped
producing any art. He would nevertheless have a great impact on American art, becoming a major symbol of
abstract expressionism.
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