Jackson Pollock Month

The birthday of New York School painter Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) is January 28th, so I’m going to call January 2025 "Curator's Corner Jackson Pollock Month." I often feel that Pollock has been pigeon-holed by some art historians as a poster child for Abstract Expressionism, which was “marketed” by the art dilettante Clement Greenberg (1909–1994) in his critical writings. I find the works for which Pollock was a “star” (most notably the splatter works) to be much less interesting than later manifestations of Pollock’s search for the ideal abstract vocabulary. 

Jackson Pollock (1912–1956, United States), Number 7, 1950, 1950. Oil, enamel, and aluminum paint on canvas, 23" x 105 ¾" (58.5 x 268.6 cm). Courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. © 2025 Pollock/Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. (MOMA-P2343plars)

In 1951, Pollock's famous drip paintings were used as backdrops for a Vogue magazine fashion model shoot. Considering the personality-oriented and commercially oriented nature of Abstract Expressionism, it is not surprising that Pollock began to steer away from his drip vocabulary around 1950 and explore forms that could be associated with things in the physical world. His works after 1950 continued some of the random, curlicue lines of his paintings of the late 1940s. However, many of them are less dense, often isolated forms against a blank background, as seen in Number 7, 1950. And typical of Pollock’s art, he worked primarily with closed compositions where the forms are contained within the boundaries of the canvas.

Jackson Pollock, Number 2, 1951, 1951. Collage of paper soaked in glue, pebbles, twine, wire mesh, newsprint, and oil on fiberboard, 40 15⁄16" x 31" (104.1 x 78.7 cm). Image Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. © 2025 Pollock Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. (SI-267plars)

Pollock also reinvestigated collage in 1951. The surface of Number 2, 1951 is a complex, dense structure of multiple layers of paint interwoven with numerous applied collage elements. These elements cannot be precisely interpreted, but Pollock made sure to include enticing bits of printed text to give the work a firm foundation in the physical world. Depth is implied not in the composition’s forms, but by Pollock's careful layering of them to reveal every single disparate element. In keeping with his emphasis on process rather than narrative, the title Number 2, 1951 acts as a sort of inventory number that catalogs his artistic journey.

Jackson Pollock, White Light, 1954. Oil, enamel, and aluminum paint on canvas, 48 3⁄16" x 38 ⅛" (122.4 x 96.9 cm). Image courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. © 2025 Pollock/Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. (MOMA-P2814plars)

White Light is one of Pollock's last canvases, and the only work he completed in 1954. In his works after 1950, Pollock sought to escape his "star quality"—which had boxed him into a category as a "drip painter"—and shift the direction of his abstraction. His art was slowly working its way back to larger, more cohesive forms, and an even denser all-over surface. By 1954, he had an artistic block that he never completely overcame before his death. White Light incorporates new techniques into his work such as squeezing black and white pigment directly from the tube and using a brush to achieve a feathery texture in some areas of the surface.

About Abstract Expressionism

Many American artists experimented with European-inspired abstract styles from before World War I (1914–1918) up to the Great Depression (1929–1940). The postwar period and subsequent depression fostered isolationist and nationalistic attitudes. Modernist experiment in art was rejected by the public in favor of realistic scenes of everyday American life seen in the work of Social Realists and Regionalists, who dominated the American art scene. In 1942, when the United States entered World War II (1939–1945) and the world was in shambles, American artists found it impossible to follow these traditional modes of expression. Eventually, it was the war that caused the ferment that led to the first original American modernist movement.

American artists seeking new modes of modern expression outside of the stale, formulaic work of artists such as Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) were inspired by European Surrealism and the idea of subconscious and spontaneous creation. This would allow American artists, including those associated with the New York School, to explore new forms. Despite the common belief among Abstract Expressionists about the primacy of spontaneous creation, randomness, and abstraction, Abstract Expressionism cannot be defined by a single style. For convenience sake, it is often divided into two main categories: action painting and color field.

About Jackson Pollock

Born in Wyoming, Pollock was one of five sons. His mother was artistic and actually inspired all five sons to want to become artists. In high school in California, he befriended Philip Guston (1913–1980), who would also become an important artist in the New York School. In 1930, after high school, Pollock moved to New York. From high school on, Pollock was always interested in expressing universal and instinctual truth in his art.

In New York, Pollock studied under the Social Realist/Regionalist artist Thomas Hart Benton (1889–1975). Despite the fact that years later Pollock would express his dissatisfaction with Benton's style, it was a major influence on his painting until 1938. In 1936, he took a workshop with David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896–1974). In it, Pollock learned how to work with unusual materials and experiment with spraying, splattering, and dripping paint. He was also exposed to the automatism of Roberto Matta (1911–2002) and the Surrealist fantasy of Joan Miró (1893–1983). The 1939 exhibition Picasso: Forty Years of His Art at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which included Guernica, was a catalyst for Pollock and the other New York School artists to explore expressionistic abstract imagery.

Pollock’s early abstract works involved forms vaguely reminiscent of figuration. Pablo Picasso's (1881–1973) expressionistic Cubism of the 1930s encouraged Pollock to explore expressionistic images in a shallow space. The surfaces were spread with cryptic, calligraphy-like symbols. It is indicative of his interest in Navajo sand painting, African sculpture, prehistoric art, and ancient Egyptian painting. By the late 1940s, Pollock had begun to experiment with all-over painting. This was the truly revolutionary moment for Abstract Expressionism. Since the Renaissance, the picture plane had always strictly enforced subject matter and pictorial space. In Pollock's dripped, splattered, and poured action paintings, the painting seems to hover above the picture plane with no one section given prominence.

Correlations to Davis programs: Explorations in Art 2E Kindergarten: 1.9; Explorations in Art 2E Grade 3: 2.1; Explorations in Art 2E Grade 4: 6.7; Experience Art: 6.2; A Community Connection 2E: p. 291; A Global Pursuit 2E: p.291; Exploring Visual Design 4E: pp. 114-115; The Visual Experience 4E: 4.2; Experience Painting: p. 264