Pioneer of ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM; b. Cody, Wyo. 1912-1956
He began to study painting in 1929 at the Art Students' League, New York,
under the Regionalist painter Thomas Hart Benton. During the 1930s he
worked in the manner of the Regionalists, being influenced also by the
Mexican muralist painters (Orozco, Rivera, Siqueiros) and by certain aspects
of Surrealism.
From 1938 to 1942 he worked for the Federal Art Project. By the mid 1940s
he was painting in a completely abstract manner, and the `drip and splash'
style for which he is best known emerged with some abruptness in 1947.
Instead of using the traditional easel he affixed his canvas to the floor
or the wall and poured and dripped his paint from a can; instead of using
brushes he manipulated it with `sticks, trowels or knives' (to use his
own words), sometimes obtaining a heavy impasto by an admixture of `sand,
broken glass or other foreign matter'. This manner of Action painting
had in common with Surrealist theories of automatism that it was supposed
by artists and critics alike to result in a direct expression or revelation
of the unconscious moods of the artist.
Pollock's name is also 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. The design of his painting
had no relation to the shape or size of the canvas -- indeed in the finished
work the canvas was sometimes docked or trimmed to suit the image. All
these characteristics were important for the new American painting which
matured in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
During the 1950s Pollock continued to produce figurative or quasi-figurative
black and white works and delicately modulated paintings in rich impasto
as well as the paintings in the new all-over style. He was strongly supported
by advanced critics, but was also subject to much abuse and sarcasm as
the leader of a still little comprehended style; in 1956 Time magazine
called him `Jack the Dripper'.
By the 1960s, however, he 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 (Post-Painterly
Abstraction). His unhappy personal life (he was an alcoholic) and his
premature death in a car crash contributed to his legendary status. In
1944 Pollock married Lee Krasner (1911-84), who was an Abstract Expressionist
painter of some distinction, although it was only after her husband's
death that she received serious critical recognition.
|