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Jackson Pollock was an American painter and one of the most important representatives of abstract expressionism. He became known for his “drip paintings”, in which he spontaneously splashed and dripped paint onto the canvas.
- Name: Jackson Pollock
- Date of birth: January 28, 1912
- Place of birth: Cody, Wyoming, USA
- Date of death: August 11, 1956
- Place of death: Springs, New York, USA
- Nationality: American
- Art style: Abstract Expressionism
- Known works: “No. 5, 1948”, “Autumn Rhythm”, “Blue Poles”
- Techniques: Drip Painting, Action Painting
- Influences: Surrealism, Native American art, Thomas Hart Benton
- Similar artists: Yves Klein, Mark Rothko
- Exhibitions: Exhibitions at MoMA, Tate Modern, Guggenheim Museum
- Special features: Pioneer of action painting, who gave art a new dimension through gestural movements and techniques
Jackson Pollock's revolutionary technique and expressive works changed the modern art world forever.
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Biography
Childhood & youth
Paul Jackson Pollock was born on January 28, 1912 in Cody, Wyoming, the youngest of five children. The family moved frequently, so Pollock spent his early childhood in Arizona and California. Even at a young age, he displayed a rebellious temperament and had difficulty adhering to school structures. The vastness of the American landscape in which he grew up, as well as his family instability, shaped Pollock's earliest experiences and later influenced his art.
In 1930, he moved to New York City to study with his older brother Charles Pollock at the Art Students League. There he met the influential teacher and painter Thomas Hart Benton, who had a strong influence on him. Although Benton is known for his regionalism, he teaches Pollock to appreciate dynamic compositions and the flow of energy in painting. Benton remains one of Pollock's important early influences, although Pollock's style will later differ dramatically from Benton's realistic depiction of American rural life.
Early career and the search for his own style
In the 1930s, Pollock worked as part of the Federal Art Project, a government program that supported artists during the Great Depression. His works during this phase were strongly influenced by the social issues of the time, and he experimented with figurative compositions and surrealist motifs. At the same time, Pollock was increasingly influenced by the ideas of Mexican muralists such as Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros, who created large-scale murals and conveyed political messages in their art.
A decisive turning point in Pollock's artistic development was his encounter with Surrealism. In his engagement with artists such as Joan Miró and André Masson, Pollock began to explore the significance of the unconscious in his art. He worked intensively with the so-called automatism technique, in which the artist painted without conscious control in order to express inner impulses and the subconscious. These experiments laid the foundations for Pollock's later, revolutionary work.
Abstract Expressionism and “drip painting”
In the 1940s, Pollock began to develop his own unmistakable style, which would make him one of the central figures of Abstract Expressionism. His marriage to the painter Lee Krasner in 1945 played a particularly important role in his artistic development. Krasner supported him and brought him into contact with important artists and gallery owners in the New York art scene, including Peggy Guggenheim, who signed Pollock under contract.
In 1947, Pollock achieved his artistic breakthrough with the development of the drip painting technique, which made him internationally famous. Instead of using a brush in the traditional way, Pollock drips, pours and flings paint onto the canvas, which he lays out on the floor. This technique, which allows him to move physically and dynamically around the painting, leads to a completely new kind of composition. In these works, Pollock dispenses with a central composition and instead works with the flow of color, which is controlled intuitively and spontaneously. His paintings and works become an expression of the artist's inner emotional and psychological state.
Pollock's “Drip Paintings” such as Number 1, 1949 and No. 5, 1948 are complex, dense webs of color trails that convey incredible depth and movement. For many critics, these paintings symbolize the pinnacle of Abstract Expressionism, as they combine the artist's control of color with the freedom of chance. Pollock's art is often referred to as an expression of “Action Painting”, a term coined by art critic Harold Rosenberg to describe the physical and gestural nature of Pollock's painting.
Success and pressure in the late 1940s and early 1950s
Pollock's “Drip Paintings” met with great attention and success in the art world. He became a key figure in the emerging American art scene, which became increasingly important after the Second World War. The MoMA in New York and gallery owners such as Peggy Guggenheim in particular contributed to making Pollock an international star. In 1949, he even appeared in an iconic article in Life Magazine with the question “Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?”.
But the immense pressure that came with this success also had a negative impact on Pollock. His mental health increasingly suffers, and he continues to struggle with alcoholism, which has been with him for years. Despite his personal struggles, Pollock remained a prolific and innovative artist into the early 1950s.
In the early 1950s, Pollock experimented with new forms and techniques. He turned away from pure drip paintings and began to work again with darker colors and figurative elements that had played a role in earlier works. At the same time, he deepened his exploration of structures and two-dimensional compositions, which became increasingly geometric and reduced, as in Number 7, 1951, but his drip technique remained his trademark and continued to inspire the art world.
Later years and the retreat
In the last years of his life, Pollock became increasingly reclusive. His alcohol consumption escalated and had a negative impact on his artistic production. In 1955, he exhibited less and less, and his inner conflicts increased. The creative heights he had reached in the late 1940s and early 1950s waned and he no longer seemed able to live up to the expectations of the art world.
Pollock's last years are characterized by personal instability, both in his marriage and in his artistic work. Although he continued to work, his production became more sporadic and he struggled with his creative energy. On August 11, 1956, at the age of only 44, Pollock dies in a car accident near his home in East Hampton, New York.
Legacy and influence
Despite his early death, Jackson Pollock left behind an enormous legacy that had a lasting impact on 20th century art. His radical approach to painting, which focused on the physical action of the painting process, influenced generations of artists. Pollock is now regarded as one of the key figures of Abstract Expressionism and modern American painting.
His influence can be felt in movements such as the Action Painting movement and Minimal Art, which further explored the boundaries of the canvas and artistic expression. The emotional intensity and physical presence of his works are considered revolutionary and have led the art world into a new era of abstraction and experimentation.
Today, Pollock's works can be found in the world's most important museums, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and the Guggenheim Museum. His “Drip Paintings” are considered masterpieces of modern art and continue to fetch record prices at auction. Pollock's influence on contemporary art remains strong and he is celebrated as one of the most innovative and expressive artists of his time.
Exhibitions
- 28.11.2021 - 04.09.2022: Jackson Pollock: Number 32, 1950 – Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York.
- 22.05.2016 - 29.10.2016: Jackson Pollock’s Mural: Energy Made Visible – Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao.
- 05.11.2015 - 06.03.2016: Jackson Pollock: Blind Spots – Tate Liverpool.
Awards
- 1949 Prize for Painting - Venice Biennale (USA representation)
- 1947 Guggenheim Fellowship - Foundation Award for Creative Arts, USA
- 1944 Pepsi-Cola Art Contest Award
Films
- Jackson Pollock, Film with Ed Harris, 122 min, USA, 2000.
- Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock?, documentary, 74 min, USA, 2006.
- Jackson Pollock: Love and Death on Long Island, documentary, 60 min, USA, 1999.
Literature
- Jackson Pollock: An American Saga, Steven Naifeh & Gregory White Smith, New York, 1990.
- Jackson Pollock – Kunst als Sinnsuche, Abstraktion, All-Over, Action Painting, Elizabeth Langhorne, Wallerstein 2013.
- Jackson Pollock: Blind Spots, Gavin Delahunty, Tate Publishing, 2015.
- Jackson Pollock: A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings, Francis V. O'Connor & Eugene V. Thaw, New Haven, 1978.
Collections
USA
- New York - The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
- New York - The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
- New York - Whitney Museum of American Art
- Washington D.C. - National Gallery of Art
UK
- London - Tate Modern
Schwitzerland
- Basel - Fondation Beyeler
France
- Paris - Centre Pompidou
Germany
- Cologne - Museum Ludwig
- Düsseldorf - Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen
