PAUL JACKSON POLLOCK
( Jackson Pollock )
‘Many of the events in Pollock’s life and much of his radically new art proved to be mystically profane
and ugly, yet awesome. At times the artist, like his art, appears to be innocent, graceful and sensitive. At
the same time, his life and art might seem to be crude, Macho and abrasive’
 His private, self-destructive compulsions and isolation drove him to his highly public end
Jackson Pollock growing up moves houses a lot -> might learned something about adaptability
Loves going to the bars of Lower Manhattan, alcoholic, drives recklessly, crude and boisterous > < his art
sits highly in the world’s most civilized museums. His unique, important and indelible contributions
changed the art world.
At 16 years old Pollock’s world changed when he was taught the basics of abstract art and sculpture by
Fredrick John de St Vrain Schwankovsky. -> He began seeing his work without a physical limit – the
rhythm and consequences patterns are carried in the mind beyond of the canvas.
When Pollock studied under Thomas Hart Benton as a student in 1930, he began experimenting and
developing a personal style that will soon change the world
1913:
The arrival of Post-Impressionism and Cubism into New York
DESCRIPTION OF HIS TECHNIQUES (THIS IS SO IMPORTANT OMG)
In an interview with William Wright for Radio Sag Harbor. He described some of his technique:
“Most of the paint I use is a liquid, flowing kind of paint. The brushes I use are used more as sticks,
rather than brushes – the brush doesn’t touch the surface of the canvas; it’s just above… I do have a
general notion of what I’m about and what the result will be… The result is the thing – and – it doesn’t
make much difference how the paint is put on as long as something has been said. Technique is just a
means of arriving at a statement. Modern art to me is nothing more than the expression of
contemporary aims of the age that we’re living in… My opinion is that new needs need new techniques.”
Pollock’s frustration:
“Do you think I would have painted this crap if I knew how to draw a hand?”
Pollock learned from Siqueiros about the beauty of new pigments, synthetic colors, shellac, Duco,
cellulose lacquers and silicones, other synthetic industrial materials. He also learned new ways to apply
those materials: pouring them, spraying them with air-gun, splattering, hurling them at the picture’s
surface.
He also studied the technical problems of ‘controlled accidents’ and spontaneous applicants of paint to
various surface.
White Light (1954), Phosphorescence(1947), Cathedral(1947) uses aluminium as materials.
Jackson Pollock’s influences:
His childhood, Theosophy, the Wild West, Benton, Siqueiros
At Siqueiros’ 1936 workshop, Pollock saw a link between the unconscious and art.
His exposure to automatism and awareness of the drip painting of Motherwell and Matta.
Jackson Pollock’s first one-man shows at Guggenheim’s AOTC: his work began to reach critical success.
In Guggenheim autobiography, she recalled: “When I first exhibited Pollock, he was very much under the
influence of the Surrealists and Picasso. But he very soon overcame this influence, to become, strangely
enough, the greatest painter since Picasso.”
Events in the late 1940s influenced art, Mariann Smith summed it up:
“The end of World War II, the explosion of the atomic bomb, and the realization that mankind had
developed the ability to destroy itself were all factors in creating a mood of introspection and
reflection.”
This was the atmosphere in which “Abstract Expressionists rejected representational art as incapable of
expressing the emotional atmosphere of the time. By turning to new forms of expressionism, Pollock,
Rothko and their colleagues brought American painting to international prominence and for the first
time an American city, New York, replaced Paris and the other European centers as the leader of the
avant-garde art world.”
In Jackson Pollock’s taped interview for the Sag Harbor radio station in the summer of 1950, which was
never aired (https://art188.lib.miamioh.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Pollock-2.pdf). Pollock
showed his awareness of the times. “It seems to me that the modern painter cannot express this age,
the aero plane, the atom bomb, the radio, in the old forms of the Renaissance or of any other past
culture. Each age finds its own technique.”