| |
|
 |
Mary Cassatt
Paul Cezanne
Frida Kahlo
Rene Magritte
Henri Matisse
Joan Miro
Claude Monet
Edvard Munch
Georgia O'Keeffe
Pablo Picasso
Jackson Pollock
Georges Seurat
Vincent van Gogh
Andy Warhol |
 |
|
Paul Jackson Pollock was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He died at the age of 44 in an alcohol-related, single-car crash.
His father was a farmer and later a land surveyor for the government. He grew up in Arizona and Chico, California, studying at Los Angeles' Manual Arts High School. During his early life, he experienced Native American culture while on surveying trips with his father. In 1930, following his brother Charles, he moved to New York City where they both studied under Thomas Hart Benton at the Art Students League of New York. Benton's rural American subject matter shaped Pollock's work only fleetingly, but his rhythmic use of paint and his fierce independence were more lasting influences. From 1935 to 1943, Pollock worked for the WPA Federal Art Project.
In October 1945, Pollock married another important American painter, Lee Krasner, and in November they moved to what is now known as the Pollock-Krasner House and Studio in Springs on Long Island, New York. Peggy Guggenheim loaned them the down payment for the wood-frame house with a nearby barn that Pollock made into a studio. It was there that he perfected the technique of working spontaneously with liquid paint.
Pollock was introduced to the use of liquid paint in 1936 at an experimental workshop operated in New York City by the Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros. He later used paint pouring as one of several techniques on canvases of the early 1940s, such as "Male and Female" and "Composition with Pouring I." After his move to Springs, he began painting with his canvases laid out on the studio floor, and he developed what was later called his "drip" technique. The drip technique required paint with a fluid viscosity. Therefore, Pollock turned to synthetic resin-based paints called alkyd enamels. Pollock described this use of household paints, instead of artistés paints, as "a natural growth out of a need". He used hardened brushes, sticks, and even basting syringes as paint applicators. Pollock's technique of pouring and dripping paint is thought to be one of the origins of the term action painting. With this technique, Pollock was able to achieve a more immediate means of creating art, the paint now literally flowing from his chosen tool onto the canvas. By defying the convention of painting on an upright surface, he added a new dimension, literally, by being able to view and apply paint to his canvases from all directions.
Pollock's most famous paintings were made during the "drip period" between 1947 and 1950. He rocketed to popular status following an August 8, 1949 four-page spread in Life Magazine that asked, "Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?" At the peak of his fame, Pollock abruptly abandoned the drip style.
Pollock's work after 1951 was darker in color, including a collection painted in black on unprimed canvases. This was followed by a return to color, and he reintroduced figurative elements. During this period Pollock had moved to a more commercial gallery and there was great demand from collectors for new paintings. In response to this pressure, along with personal frustration, his alcoholism deepened.
In 1955, Pollock painted Scent and Search which proved to be his last two paintings. Pollock did not paint at all in 1956. After struggling with alcoholism his entire life, Pollock's career was cut short on August 11, 1956 at 10:15pm when he died in a single-car crash while driving under the influence of alcohol. One of the passengers, Edith Metzger, also was killed in the accident, which occurred less than a mile from Pollock's home. The other passenger, Pollock's girlfriend Ruth Kligman, survived. After Pollock's death at the age of 44, his wife, Lee Krasner, managed his estate and ensured that Pollock's reputation remained strong despite changing art-world trends. They are buried in Green River Cemetery in Springs with a large boulder marking his grave and a smaller one marking hers.
|
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
