Jackson Pollock

Paul Jackson Pollock, born in Cody, Wyoming, in January 1912, was the youngest of five boys. His parents, Stella and LeRoy, were from Iowa, and his father had taken the surname of his adoptive parents. The family moved often for LeRoy’s work as a farmer and government surveyor; when Jackson was just ten months old, his mother took him and his brothers to San Diego, and he never returned to Cody. He grew up in Arizona and Chico, California. Expelled from two high schools, including Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles, Pollock spent time on surveying trips with his father, where he first encountered Native American culture. He was also deeply impressed by Mexican muralists, especially José Clemente Orozco, whose fresco *Prometheus* he later called the greatest painting in North America.

In 1930, Pollock followed his older brother Charles to New York City and studied under Thomas Hart Benton at the Art Students League. Benton’s rural subject matter didn’t stick, but his rhythmic paint handling and fierce independence did. During the early 1930s, Pollock toured the western United States with Benton and fellow student Glen Rounds. In 1936, at a workshop in New York led by Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros, Pollock was introduced to using liquid paint. That same summer, he went to Dartmouth College to study Orozco’s massive mural *The Epic of American Civilization*. He began using poured paint in early 1940s works like *Male and Female* and *Composition with Pouring I*.

From 1938 to 1942, Pollock worked for the WPA Federal Art Project while struggling with alcoholism. He underwent Jungian psychotherapy with Dr. Joseph L. Henderson from 1938 to 1941, and later with Dr. Violet Staub de Laszlo until 1942. His therapist encouraged him to draw, and Jungian concepts and archetypes appeared in his paintings. Some psychiatrists have suggested Pollock may have had bipolar disorder.

In July 1943, Pollock signed a contract with Peggy Guggenheim and was commissioned to create *Mural* for her townhouse entrance. On the advice of Marcel Duchamp, he painted it on canvas so it could be moved. After seeing it, critic Clement Greenberg declared it great art and called Pollock the greatest painter the country had produced. The catalog for his first exhibition described his talent as volcanic, fiery, unpredictable, and undisciplined.

Pollock’s most famous works came during his “drip period” from 1947 to 1950. He laid canvases on the studio floor and poured or splashed household paint from all angles, covering the entire surface in what became known as all-over painting and action painting. He used his whole body, often dancing frenetically, to apply the paint. This extreme abstraction split critics: some praised its immediacy, others dismissed it as random.

Pollock was reclusive and volatile, and alcoholism plagued him most of his life. In 1945, he married artist Lee Krasner, who became a major influence on his career and legacy. He died in August 1956 at age 44 in a single-car crash while driving, which was alcohol-related. Four months later, the Museum of Modern Art in New York held a memorial retrospective; a larger exhibition followed in 1967. In 1998 and 1999, major retrospectives were mounted at MoMA and the Tate Gallery in London.