According to Understanding Art 8th Edition and Claude Cernuschi, “Jackson Pollock was born on a sheep farm in Cody, Wyoming on January 28, 1912, as Paul Jackson Pollock, and is probably the best known of the Abstract Expressionists.” As stated in Understanding Art 8th Edition and Jackson Pollock’s Biography, “During 1929, Jackson Pollock moved to New York to study paintings with a Regionalist painter, by the name of Thomas Hart Benson, at the Art Student’s League.” Jackson Pollock began to work in the manner of Surrealism during the 1930’s, by working with Regionalists, and becoming influenced by three Mexican muralist painters by the names of Orozco, Rivera, and Siqueiros.
When Jackson Pollock was just an infant, his father had left him, his siblings, and his mother, in which his father did not have any intentions on ever returning to his family life. Jackson Pollock’s mother kept looking for opportunities for her family, which caused his family to move six times within a short ten year period. Jackson Pollock began to struggle in school, Claude Cernuschi wrote, “In 1927, he was enrolled in the Riverside High School. However, he did leave after attending the school for one year due to an argument with an ROTC officer.”
In 1928, Jackson Pollock’s family moved yet again, this time to Los Angeles, California where he had attended the Manual Arts High School. Claude Cernuschi said,
“Jackson Pollock had met Frederick John de St. Vrain Schwankovsky, a teacher who had introduced him to mysticism, theosophy, and modern art.” Jackson Pollock could not handle the discipline and stress of athletics, so he began to struggle in school once again. Jackson Pollock had been expelled during the 1928-1929 school year for having part in writing and distributing a pamphlet which attacked the faculty and the importance of the school sports programs.
Claude Cernuschi also wrote, “In the spring of 1930, Frederick John de St. Vrain Schwankovsky, had helped Jackson Pollock return to the Manual Arts School, but only on a part-time basis. Jackson Pollock had taken drawing and modeling classes in the morning and worked at home in the afternoon.” Jackson Pollock had recognized that social interaction was difficult for him to cope with. He struggled in school because he was impatient, and thought that school was constantly boring even if he was interested in the subject. He also was a slow learner, however, Claude Cernuschi stated, “Nothing in the early biographical information about Jackson Pollock suggests that he would become one of the most important artists of the later twentieth century.”
According to Jackson Pollock’s Biography, “he had worked for the Federal Art Project from 1938-1942. By the mid 1940’s Jackson Pollock was painting in a completely abstract manner and the ‘drip and splash’ style, for which he was best known for emerged with great abruptness during the year of 1947.” Jackson Pollock was not a traditional painter. He did not use the easel like other famous artists had, nor did he use brushes to paint with. He was exceptionally creative; he would place his canvas on the floor or on the wall, in which he would either pour or drip paint onto it. He liked using sticks, trowels and knives to manipulate the paint into creating the artwork that we are so found of today. Written in Understanding Art 8th Edition, “Jackson Pollock’s painting style became known as action painting in 1951 by an art critic whose name is Harold Rosenberg. Action painting is described as a painting whose surface implied a strong sense of activity, as created by the signs of brushing, dripping, or splattering of paint.”
According to Jackson Pollock’s Biography, “His name is associated with the introduction of the all-over style of painting which avoids any points of emphasis or identifiable parts within the whole canvas and therefore abandons the traditional idea of composition in terms of relations among parts.” Jackson Pollock never painted to the size of his canvases; often he would trim his canvases to fit the size of his paintings.
During 1956, Time Magazine called Jackson Pollock, ‘Jack the Dripper’, because he continued produce black and white paintings which were created in rich impasto as well as the new all-over style. As stated in Jackson Pollock’s Biography, “By the 1960’s, Jackson Pollock was generally recognized as the most important figure in the most important movement of this century in American painting, but a movement from which artists were already in reaction.”
Due to Jackson Pollock’s unique artistic style, it is stated in Jackson Pollock’s Biography that, “He had blazed an astonishing trail for other Abstract Expressionist painters to follow.” Jackson Pollock had incorporated Surrealist ideas of psychic automatism into his action paintings beginning in 1947, which according to Understanding Art 8th Edition, “He believed strongly in the role of the unconscious mind, of accident and spontaneity, in the creation of art.”
Jackson Pollock had created three paintings before the 1947 time period, which are completely different than his action paintings. ‘The Moon-Woman Cuts the Circle’ and ‘Blue (Moby Dick)’ were created in 1943. In my opinion, the paintings can take on at least to views by the observing art lovers. The paintings either give the viewer the feel that Jackson Pollock truly did not know how to draw, and that could be a reason why he was extremely bored in school, even when he was taking his drawing classes. Or he drew in this particular way for the effect of accomplishing abstract art. Written in Understanding Art 8th Edition, “Clement Greenberg shows the impact that Jackson Pollock made at an early exhibition of his work. His paintings of this era frequently depicted actual or implied figures that were reminiscent of the abstractions of Picasso and, at times, of Expressionists and Surrealists.”
‘Shimmering Substance’ was painted in 1946. It appears that Jackson Pollock was playing with the idea of action painting, but was not completely aware of what he was creating or why he was creating it. In my opinion, I feel that Jackson Pollock wanted to create a new and different way of generating art using techniques that were fun for him, and in a way that he felt he could truly express himself. Also, in my opinion, these three specific paintings are well known due to his paintings that began in 1947.
The most well known paintings are ‘Cathedral’ painted in 1947, ‘Lavender Mist: Number 1, 1950’ painted in 1950, and ‘Blue Poles: Number II, 1952’ painted in 1952. These three paintings are the creations of action painting, in which Jackson Pollock has produced an illusion of infinite depth by overlapping skeins of paint which formed energetic webs. According to Understanding Art 8th Edition, “In Jackson Pollock’s best work, these webs seem to be composed of energy that pushes and pulls the monumental tracery of the surface like the architectural shapes of a Hofmann painting.”
When Jackson Pollock began working with Thomas Hart Benson, he had once accused his own artwork of lacking rhythm and being “cold and lifeless.” However, he did soak in many of Thomas Hart Benson’s techniques. As stated by Claude Cernuschi, Thomas Hart Benson said, “Jack did not have a logical mind; he did catch on to the counterpuntal logic of occidental form construction quite quickly. In his analytical work he got things out of proportion but found the essential rhythms.”
Jackson Pollock did marry a woman by the name of Lee Krasner in 1944. She too was an Abstract Expressionist painter; however she did not receive any recognition until after the death of her husband, Jackson Pollock. Jackson Pollock had passed away in 1956. According to Jackson Pollock’s Biography, “he was an alcoholic, and had a very unhappy personal life. His premature death in a car accident contributed to his legendary status.” Before he had died, Understanding Art 8th Edition states, “Jackson Pollock had returned to figural paintings that were heavy in impasto and predominantly black. One wonders what might have emerged if Jackson Pollock had lived a fuller life.”
Bibliography
Cernuschi, Claude. Jackson Pollock: Meaning and Significance. Westview Press,
Boulder, Colorado. 1992.
Fichner-Rathus, Lois. Understanding Art 8th Edition. The College of New Jersey,
Copyright 2007.
Jackson Pollock 1912-1956; A Biography.
<http://www.beatmuseum.org/pollock/jacksonpollock.html>
