Jackson pollock’s mural: energy made visible

Mural, 1943 ($140 million)

Based on its simplicity, most people have theorized that he painted this picture in one day. However, according to Guggenheim Bilbao, there was a restoration that revealed that it may have taken him several weeks to complete it. That is because the painting had many layers and at least 20 colors. Another reason it took so long is that the painting seems calculated. For instance, the author’s gestures, drips, and brushstrokes are visible. Jackson claimed the mural represented a stampede of every animal in the American West. Currently, this painting is at the University of Iowa Museum of Art, Iowa City.

Splashdown

After fifty years of debate, the answer to Modern Art’s greatest puzzle was delivered from an unexpected source – science.

In 1999, Richard Taylor and his research team published the results of their scientific analysis showing Pollock’s poured patterns to be fractal. Consisting of patterns that recur at increasingly fine magnifications, fractals are the basic building blocks of nature’s scenery. Labelled as “Fractal Expressionism,” Pollock distilled the essence of natural scenery and expressed it on his canvases with an unmatched directness. By adopting nature’s pattern generation processes, the resulting paintings didn’t mimic nature but instead stood as examples of nature. The above images compare Pollock’s fractals to those found in nature. Remarkably, the analysis revealed a highly systematic fractal painting process perfected by Pollock over a decade.

Since this discovery, the continuing research on Pollock’s fractals by Taylor’s group and others has been greeted with considerable enthusiasm from the press, the public, and the scientific and artistic communities. Inevitably, there’s also a lot of misinformation about Pollock’s fractals on the Internet. Click here for the facts.

Click here to read a popular book chapter by science writer Arthur Miller: “How Fractals, Science and Technology Helped Resolve the World’s Greatest Art Scandal”

Selected Publications and Media:

“Francis O’Connor and Jackson Pollock’s Fractals”, Fractals Research, ISBN: 0-9791874-7-8 (2019)
“Fractal Expressionism: the Art and Science Behind Jackson Pollock’s Paintings” book to be published in 2021 (not available for download)
“The Abstract Expressionists and Les Automatistes: A Shared Multi-fractal Depth” Signal Processing, 573-878, 93, 2013
“Francis O’Connor discusses Pollock’s Fractal Patterns”
“Chaos, Fractals, Nature: A New Look at Jackson Pollock”, book published by Fractals Research ISBN: 0-9791874-1-9 (2010)
“Perceptual and Physiological Responses to Jackson Pollock’s Fractals” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 5 1 (2011)
“Multifractal and Statistical Comparison of Painting Techniques of Adults and Children” SPIE Proceedings of Electronic Imaging, special edition on Computer Vision and Image Analysis of Art 75317531001-6(2010)
“Dimensional Interplay Analysis of ‘Poured’ Paintings” Fractals Research ISBN: 0-9791874-4-3 (2008)
“Authenticating Pollock Paintings with Fractal Geometry” Pattern Recognition Letters 28 695 (2007)
“Revisiting Pollock’s Poured Paintings” Nature Communications Arising 44 doi:10:1038/nature05399 (2006)
“In the Hands of the Master” by Alison Abbott Nature 439 648 (2006)
“Personal Reflections on Pollock’s Fractal Paintings” Invited essay, special edition of the JournalHistory, Science and Health 13 108-23 (2006)
“Fractal Expressionism – Where Art Meets Science” Invited Chapter to the book Art and ComplexityElsevier Science Amsterdam (2003)
“Order in Pollock’s Chaos” Scientific American 287 116 (2002)
“The Construction of Pollock’s Fractal Drip Paintings” Leonardo 35 203-7 (2002)
Fractal analysis of Pollock’s drip paintings, Nature, 422, 399 (1999)
Fractal Expressionism, Physics World, October 1999

**Answer key (starting top left and going clockwise): a bush, vegetation, seaweed, trees, spiders web, Pollock!

Blue Poles

Date created: 1952
Dimensions: 212.1 × 488.9 centimeters (83.5 × 192.5 inches)
Location: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia

Blue Poles is an enormous work of art that Pollock originally named “Number 11,” a name it went by for 2 years. This was not unusual because the artist refused to assign a proper name to his works.

Because of the distinctive blue paint which appears to take on the shape of poles, the painting was referred to as “Blue Poles” by 1954. It was purchased by the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) for the large sum of A$1.3 million in 1973, a controversial acquisition at the time.

Blue Poles / Wiki Commons

Full Fathom Five, 1947

Image: shopify

Have you seen a two or three dimensional abstract painting before?

Well, Full Fathom Five by Jackson Pollock is one of the paintings that gives out this appeal to the viewers.

It was the pioneer painting of the drip technique.

This Jackson Pollock paintings is a metaphor for the human mind and the thoughts that they carry within themselves.

Although it glitters in the light, the surface beneath releases a composition that showcases the disturbed and gloomy minds of humans.

Have you read The Tempest by Shakespeare?

If you have, then you must be aware of the title to which this painting belongs.

It basically comes from one of the scenes where colors are represented as shipwrecks, which were described by Ariel in the play.

The lines go like this, “Full fathom five thy father lies / Of his bones are coral made / Those are pearls that were his eyes.”

This paintings by Jackson Pollock is housed in the Museum of Modern Art, with no estimated cost mentioned.

Remember, art is created from the perspective of the painter with the inspiration that they have in the first place.

Now, you know the art, but what about the man behind those works?

Below is a small gist of facts about artist Jackson Pollock that will enhance your knowledge.

(Also Read: Dogs Playing Poker Painting

Jackson Pollock’s Abstract Expressionism Action Painting

Jackson Pollock is one of the founders of the art movement known as abstract expressionism. He also was a creator of what is known as action painting.

The Free Form painting by Jackson Pollock is an excellent example of action painting. Action painting is when the painters work spontaneously and use large brushes to make sweeping gestural marks.

Jackson Pollock was known to place his canvas on the ground and to dance around the canvas while pouring paint from the can or trailing the canvas from behind with a brush or stick. This is why action painting is known to place the inner impulses of the artist onto the canvas itself.

Jackson Pollock is said to have placed his inner emotions onto the canvas he painted, many of them his inner demons.

In the movie The Accountant, the Jackson Pollock painting would have also represented some of the inner demons that the Accountant (Christian Wolff) had and why the painting was such a powerful representation of the film metaphor.

Facts about Jackson Pollock

Image: sothebys

To know why is Jackson Pollock famous, we first need to learn some interesting facts about him:

Pollock was known by his middle name “Jackson,” his first name was Paul.
Jackson was sent to psychiatric care for a few months during the summer after he had a nervous breakdown.
He was highly influenced by his wife, Lee Krasner whose natural forms and treating the canvas as a flat piece made him paint his most renowned paintings.
Although painter Jackson Pollock is considered as the most famous in today’s time with criticism and negative reviews being a huge part of his life.
Jackson Pollock death was tragic. He died at an early age of 44 in a traffic collision.
He was an artist who never used an easel for his work.
Jackson Pollock’s older brother Charles Pollock was also a painter who helped him kick-start his career.
He was once the subject of Oscar winning film “.”
Most of his work was a part of his subconscious and conscious minds depending on how sober he is while painting.
Jackson Pollock never travelled outside the United States even though he had numerous shows overseas.

Lastly, I would like to mention one of his quotes,

Red Composition, 1946 ($18 million)

Jackson debuted his first drip painting with this painting. He made his painting as a sign that he was ready to depart from his previous painting techniques. From this year onwards, he abandoned paintbrushes completely. He sought to liberate himself from Surrealism and venture into Expressionism. Surrealism was a way of painting to elicit shock and curiosity.

Surrealist paintings used distorted and bizarre imagery that was inspired by dreams and not by reality. By embracing Expressionism, he hoped to be as good as Picasso. Many people owned this painting.

First, it was owned by his mentor and friend, Peggy Guggenheim. Peggy then gave it to James Ernst, the son of a painter named Max Ernst, in 1947. Later, the painting was acquired by Marshall Reisman, a New York businessman, in the 1950s. It remained in their collection for at least 40 years before donating it to the Everson Museum of Art in 1991, where it remains to this day.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is Jackson Pollock’s Art Known For?

Pollock is best known for his distinctive drip paintings. He’d place canvases on the floor and then drip or pour paint onto them, forming complicated webs of lines. This method enabled him to create art that was spontaneous and expressive. He is regarded as a pivotal player in the Abstract Expressionist movement that arose in America during the mid-20th century. Unlike traditional representation, his approach to drip painting emphasized intuitive and emotive creative expression. Pollock’s unconventional method of art-making had a significant effect on modern art. His works pushed the boundaries of artistic subject matter and techniques, laying the path for innovative thinking and experimentation in subsequent art movements.

What Is the Most Expensive Pollock Painting Ever Sold?

Original Pollock paintings fetch millions of dollars at auction, with the most expensive of all Jackson Pollock’s artworks, Number 5 (1948), fetching a stunning $140 million in 2006 by David Geffen. Jackson Pollock’s paintings are regarded as American cultural icons, personifying the tortured artist and the avant-garde ethos. His career and life, as well as his untimely death in a car accident, all added to the mystique that surrounded him.

What the Critics Said

The writer Lawrence Alloway said, “The paint, though subject to exceptional control, was not applied by touch; the paint impressions we see were formed by the fall and flow of liquid paint in the grip of gravity…onto a surface that was not hard and firm like a primed canvas but soft and receptive as sized and unprimed duck .”

The writer Werner Haftmann described it as being “like a seismograph” in which the painting “recorded the energies and states of the man who drew it.”

Art historian Claude Cernuschi described it “as manipulating the behavior of pigment under the law of gravity.” To make a line thinner or thicker, “Pollock simply accelerated or decelerated his movements so that the marks on the canvas became direct traces of the artist’s sequential movements in space.”

New York Times art critic Howard Devree compared Pollock’s handling of paint to “baked macaroni.”6

Pollock himself denied there was any loss of control when painting: “I have a general notion of what I’m about and what the results will be … With experience, it seems possible to control the flow of paint to a great extent … I deny the accident.”

Artist Abstract: Who Was Jackson Pollock?

Paul Jackson Pollock was one of the most well-known Abstract Expressionists of the 20th century. He was an American artist, born in the city of Cody in Wyoming, the United States, and lived to age 44; his date of birth was January 28, 1912, and his date of death was August 11, 1956. His artistic style involved figurative and abstract artworks and he became famous for his action paintings, also called “drip paintings”. His personal life was challenging due to his alcoholism. He was married to Lee Krasner and reportedly the couple never had children. Artworks by Jackson Pollock include Mural (1943), Full Fathom Five (1947), and The Tea Cup (1946).

Exhibition with Jackson Pollock’s paintings at Moderna Museet (1963); Lindgren, Herbert (1919–1987), Stockholms stadsmuseum, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Number 17A, 1948

Image: shopify

Number 17A could be counted as the best example of the drip technique introduced by Pollock.

It’s an oil art on a fireboard canvas with a huge quantity of paint that creates a complex swirl of colors.

With all the paint smudged in white, yellow, blue, and black, it’s impossible to locate the top and bottom of the painting.

Convergence, 1952 ($300 million)

There is a splatter of several colors like yellow, black, blue, and orange in this painting. When he made his painting, he abandoned his signature style of colorful abstract drip paintings in his work. For instance, he began making black the dominant color in his paintings; hence his paintings were called the «black period.»

When he made his painting, he anticipated that few people would like or understand this painting. His prediction turned out correct when many people were disinterested in it when it was first exhibited. Viewers termed the painting too subtle. However, the painting was appreciated posthumously. Critics began to appreciate the visuals of the painting without focusing too much on the reason behind the painting. This painting is housed at Albright-Knox Art Gallery.

About Abstract Expressionism

Image: doagahehoc242 cloudfront

“Abstract Expressionism” is an art movement introduced in the mid 20th century that comprises manifold styles.

It was an artistic technique that represented the independent thoughts of the artist.

The movement gives meaning to gestural brush strokes and mark making figures.

It basically shows the meaning behind each brush stroke that Pollock, as an artist, is dripping on the canvas.

Most people find abstract art jumbled.

Many questions crossed the mind, such as, “is that really an art?” What does that even mean? Why would someone paint such art?

With the thought of learning more about Pollock’s iconic pieces of art and the meaning they carry, here we have discussed the ten paintings by Jackson Pollock, which will help you understand the artwork in a better way.

Let’s read!

Number 1 (Lavender Mist), 1950

Image: arthive

Give this artwork a closer look.

You will notice handprints of Pollock in the upper right and left corners as his signature.

This is the reason why it is Jackson Pollock most famous paintings.

But there is another part that make this art to fall into Jackson Pollock famous paintings. You know what?

This painting is a significance of Pollock’s artistic breakthrough.

Let me tell you a little backstory that led to the creation of this artwork!

While suffering through alcoholism, Jackson decided to move to a quieter place on eastern Long Island.

He had his own shop next to his house and would set down his brush and canvas on the sand to complete his works.

The colors he used depicted his emotions and the situation he was going through.

Pollock used action painting, which is one kind of abstract art, to portray the feelings he has in his inner self.

You must be wondering why it is called Lavender Mist although there is no trace of lavender, right?

Well, Clement Greenberg, an art critic, suggested this title to Pollock, which he eventually kept.

Jackson’s sands, eelgrass around his house and the gorgeous watery lights in the sea became his main inspiration.

An artist named Alfonso Ossorio bought the painting for $1,500 in installments during the 1950s and later sold it to a gallery in New York City.

This artwork by Jackson Pollock currently exhibits at the National Gallery of Art, Washington.

Today, the artwork is worth more than $450 million, which is remarkable.

Pollock’s Palette

The artist Lee Krasner, who was married to Pollock, described his palette as «typically a can or two of…enamel thinned to the point he wanted it, standing on the floor beside the rolled-out canvas» and that Pollock used Duco or Davoe and Reynolds brands of paint. (Duco was a trade name of the industrial paint manufacturer DuPont.)

A lot of Pollock’s drip paintings are dominated by black and white, but there are often unexpected colors and multimedia elements. The amount of paint in one of Pollock’s drip paintings, the three-dimensionality, can be appreciated fully only by standing in front of one; a reproduction simply doesn’t convey this.

The paint is sometimes diluted to the point where it creates a little textural effect; at others, it’s thick enough to cast shadows.

Naming His Paintings

To stop people trying to find representational elements in his paintings, Pollock abandoned titles for them and started numbering them instead. Pollock said someone looking at a painting should “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.”

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.”

SourcesAlloway, L. «Pollock’s Black Paintings.” Arts Magazine 43 (May 1969). Quoted in Cernuschi, p. 159.

Friedman, B.H. “An Interview with Lee Krasner Pollock.” In “Jackson Pollock: Black and White,” exhibition catalog, Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, Inc. New York 1969, pp. 7-10. Quoted in «The Impact of Modern Paints» by Jo Crook and Tom Learner, p. 17.

Friedman, B.H. “Jackson Pollock: Energy Made Visible.” Quoted in Cernuschi, p. 89.Friedman, B.H. Interview in “Pollock Painting.” Quoted in Cernuschi, p. 129

Pollock, Jackson. “My Painting.” In “Possibilities I” (Winter 1947-8). Quoted in «Jackson Pollock: Meaning and Significance» by Claude Cernuschi, p. 105.Wright, William. Pollock interview for the Sag Harbor radio station, taped 1950 but never broadcast. Reprinted in Hans Namuth, “Pollock Painting,” New York 1978, quoted in Crook and Learner, p. 8.

FAQs

Why is Jackson Pollock paintings so expensive?

Jackson Pollock painted rich, original works that influenced the Abstract Expressionist movement, making space among the expensive paintings.

What was Jackson Pollock’s most famous painting called?

The most famous painting by Jackson Pollock is Number One, 1950 (Lavender Mist).

What is Jackson Pollock art style?

Apart from Abstract Expressionism, Jackson also use art styles such as Modern art and Action paintings.

What is Jackson Pollock biggest paintings?

Mural (1943) is the largest work by Jackson Pollock that is stretched by 20 feet wide by 8 feet tall.

A Brief Introduction to Jackson Pollock

Artist’s Full Name	Paul Jackson Pollock
Nationality	American
Date of Birth	28 January 1912
Date of Death	11 August 1956
Place of Birth	Cody, Wyoming, United States

Born in Cody, Wyoming, on the 28th of January, 1912, the artist was known to his family and friends as Paul Jackson Pollock. During the latter half of the 1920s, Pollock studied at the Manual Arts High School, and it was there that he met Philip Guston, a friend who would also eventually become a pivotal figure in the Abstract art movement. The artist then relocated to New York in the autumn of 1930, where he enrolled in the Art Students League and was mentored by Thomas Hart Benton, a highly renowned Regionalist artist.

The murals that Pollock produced around 1937 were highly influenced by Benton’s style, in addition to the style of José Clemente Orozco, a renowned muralist from Mexico. He then went on to create works in a more Surrealist style, many of which reflected the influence of Joan Miró. Peggy Guggenheim was one of the first prominent individuals in the art world to take notice of Jackson Pollock’s art, hosting his debut solo exhibition in 1943. The original Pollock paintings produced in the latter half of the 1940s would come to define his style and legacy.

Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), 1950

Image: galleryintell

The MET has this drip painting attached to it as a badge of honor.

As the title suggests, “Autumn Rhythm” provides an idea of the month as well as the instability of nature.

Being the first drip painting by Jackson Pollock, it was the most famous work during the month of October.

People, while reviewing Pollock’s art, have thoughts about what makes it different from his other works.

Well, Jackson was a genius. You know why?

This is because every stroke and splash of paint were more strategically placed than in his previous work.

As a famous abstract artist, Pollock knows how to portray his work in its most unique form.

In a way, the thought that carries this art is Pollock’s abandoning personal power to the artistic process, which was a great contribution to modern art.

Jackson expresses this feeling by renouncing all responsive control over his work.

Conclusion

When we walk into a museum, we usually encounter paintings we do not understand. Furthermore, we wonder why they are highly-priced. Based on Jackson’s story, you finally understand why his paintings are expensive. For instance, his paintings revolutionized the way people viewed paintings. He realized that he could not continue making the same kind of paintings.

Even though some people did not understand his paintings at first, they eventually sold well since the viewers needed time to embrace the new painting styles. Also, his paintings are expensive due to his backstory. Consider the case of the Blue Poles painting. At the time, he was at his lowest moments. However, thanks to this painting, we understand this painting better. Very few painters can tell a story in their paintings as Jackson did with this one.

You can also read:

The 10 Most Expensive Paintings of All-Time
The Five Most Expensive Van Gogh Paintings Ever Sold
The 10 Richest Painters in the World
The 10 Most Expensive Tattoo Artists in the World

The incredible six-month conservation treatment at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, sheds groundbreaking insight into his practice

By Janelle Zara

September 3, 2018

While the old adage states that there’s nothing quite as dull as watching paint dry, watching 70-year-old paint as it’s restored to its former luster is, apparently, a rollercoaster of emotion.

“It’s always a big thrill when you find a cigarette butt in a Jackson Pollock painting,” said private paintings conservator Chris Stavroudis, speaking earlier this spring at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. He had just begun his public restoration of Number 1, 1949, a Pollock painting tangled with strands of oil paint, house paint, car paint, and more.

During the six-month process, which ended at the end of August, he made a number of small discoveries while painstakingly removing decades’ worth of dirt from Pollock’s iconic drips of paint. They run the gamut from cigarette butts to hidden layers of paint and nails, all of which shed greater insight into the artist’s practice. (Stavroudis even found a honeybee embedded in Pollock’s paints as well, although he hopes that it was trapped there by mistake.)

Chris Stavroudis with Pollock’s Number 1, 1949. Photo: Brian Forrest, Courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

One of Stavroudis’s most exciting finds were the tendrils of orange paint hidden underneath Pollock’s composition. “Down past the surface layer of paint this orange kind of glowing through the cracks,” he said in conversation with MOCA curator Anna Katz, a small detail that speaks volumes.

It indicates Pollock’s deliberate reevaluation of his compositional choices, reinforcing “this idea that Pollock wasn’t just this cartoon character that he became in popular culture, just throwing paint around… We have that really intense focus on his part of determining the balance in these paintings, even though it seems sporadic and uncontrolled.”

An installation view of “Jackson Pollock’s Number 1, 1949: A Conservation Treatment,” in Los Angeles. Photo: Brian Forrest, Courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

As a conservator, Stavroudis’s combined the skills of an art historian, chemist, painter, and detective amount to informed decisions when confronted with difficult choices. His process pits the preservation of aging materials against the artist’s original vision, a quandary that’s proven to be controversial in the past.

The “over-cleaning” of Old Masters paintings, for example, have sometimes changed the brightness of the paints to the point where they no longer reflect the original composition. In the case of Pollock, the disparate materials prove especially challenging.

An installation view of Jackson Pollock’s “Number 1, 1949: A Conservation Treatment,” in Los Angeles. Photo: Brian Forrest, Courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

“If can we recover the the bright shining silver and recover the white of those oil tendrils, how is that offset by the discoloration of the fabric around?” Stavroudis asked. “There’s no question that this painting should be cleaned, but it’s something to recognize that materials have changed. It will never look like the day it came out of Jackson Pollock’s studio or off of his floor. That’s one of the things we wrestle with.”

The historical implications of the conservator’s work sometimes weigh heavily on his mind. “It’s humbling to think that if something happened to this under my watch,” Stavroudis added, “I would be an asterisk in art history. That’s more than humbling—it’s a bit frightening.”

Archival videos of the artist working were on display. Photo: Brian Forrest, Courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

For an art enthusiast, however, the benefits far outweigh the risks. “The fact that we get to touch the painting and look at it under really bright light is one of the perks of the job.”

Chris Stavroudi removing layers of dirt. Photo: Brian Forrest, Courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

Cover: Jackson Pollock working on Alchemy in 1947

Photo: Collection Peggy Guggenheim The Artist and Cristin Tierney Gallery, New York, NY.

The Deep (1953) by Jackson Pollock in Context

The Deep painting analysis below will discuss Jackson Pollock’s artistic approach and what the possible symbolic meaning of this work could be. It will then take a closer look at the subject matter and provide a formal analysis according to how the art elements compose the piece.

Artist	Jackson Pollock
Date Painted	1953
Medium	Enamel on canvas
Genre	Abstract
Period/Movement	Abstract Expressionism
Dimensions (cm)	150.2 x 220.4
Series/Versions	N/A
Where Is It Housed?	Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France
What It Is Worth	Donated to the Centre Georges Pompidou in 1976 by the Menil Foundation

Contextual Analysis: A Brief Socio-Historical Overview

In 1953 Jackson Pollock painted The Deep, which is categorized from the later stages of his artistic oeuvre. This is a shift away from what he became known for, which were his life-size drip paintings filled with poured and splattered paint. When The Deep was painted Pollock already started moving towards a different approach in his artworks, notably creating more black and white paintings, which also tended more towards figuration.

Mural, 1943

Image: blogspot

An artwork that was the turning point for American art—Mural!

This painting was the first commissioned work of Pollock by Peggy Guggenheim.

It’s a transition from representational art to action art.

It was said that Guggenheim wanted Pollock to paint on the wall, but Marcel Duchamp suggested painting on a canvas to keep it portable.

Mural painting means artworks on the wall, but Pollock brought an oversized canvas to paint this masterpiece.

After being “blocked” by thoughts about what exactly to put on the canvas, this art by Jackson Pollock was finished in just one night.

Mural represents a “scattering of every creature in the American West.”

It’s a vision of Jackson’s, which makes him paint such artwork with the thought that everything is changing around the world.

The Iowa Stanley Museum of Art exhibits these Jackson Pollock artworks in its gallery.

The value that this masterpiece holds is more than 140 million dollars, which adds more shine to it.

Painting Method

Krasner described Pollock’s painting method thus: “Using sticks and hardened or worn-out brushes (which were in effect like sticks) and basting syringes, he’d begin. His control was amazing. Using a stick was difficult enough, but the basting syringe was like a giant fountain pen. With it, he had to control the flow of the paint as well as his gesture.”

In 1947 Pollock described his painting method for the magazine Possibilities: “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.”

In 1950 Pollock described his painting method this way:

Pollock would also rest a stick on the inside of a tin of paint, then angle the tin so the paint would pour or drip down the stick continuously, onto the canvas. Or he would make a hole in a can to get an extended line.

Where to see the works of Jackson Pollock

Much of Jackson Pollock’s work can be seen at the Guggenheim Museum in New York(The Moon woman, 1942, and some of his most famous drippings ), Autumn Rhythm, (1950) is preserved at the Metropolitan Museum, and Lavander Mist (1950) is at the National Gallery in Washington. The National Gallery of Australia boasts one of Pollock’s most famous works, Blue Poles (1952), although the purchase of the work came amid some controversy, because the director, James Mollison, was not authorized to purchase works over $1 million, so he only obtained the painting with the approval of then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. Italy also possesses some famous works by Pollock: in fact, at the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome it is possible to see Watery Paths (1947), Painting A (1950), Square Composition (with horse) from 1937-38.

Jackson Pollock, life and works of the great abstract expressionist

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The Deep, 1953

Image: wordpress

One of the most famous paintings by Jackson Pollock, The Deep, was one of his last works before his unfortunate death.

The Deep became the most controversial artwork and a topic that people would debate.

The choice of colors in this artwork (gray, black, and white) depicts the emotions and breakthrough he was suffering from.

The shades show the effects of the alcohol he was drowning himself in.

With numerous interpretations on the painting and the shuffling of the names, such as a viscous cut or a dying man, the painting gives each time a different view.

This proves the artist’s point that the art could be seen in the way the viewer examined it.

This Jackson Pollock painting was on display at the Centre Pompidou Museum in Paris.

Keeping in mind his earlier works, this masterpiece would also include a value that is beyond one’s imagination!

Suggested Read: Composition 8 by Wassily Kandinsky