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Abstract Expressionism
(AE) |
Jackson Pollock |
| When: |
1912 - 56 |
| Where: |
Wyoming, US |
| Influenced by: |
At the age of 18, he moved to New York City
to study with the American Regionalist painter Thomas Hart
Benton at the Art Students League
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| After a few years, he began to lose interest in
Benton's realist style, turning instead to the Mexican muralists
José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros. |
| What: |
At 26 Pollock suffered a breakdown caused in part
by creative blocks and alcoholic binges. |
| |
Sessions with a Jungian psychoanalyst made him
aware that emotions had become the central challenge in his
life and work. |
| Early Works: |
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"Orange Head" 1938-42 |
| Expressionism: |
"Orange Head" is exaggerated by clashing
colours and distortion.
Shows influence of Picasso as well. |
| Automatism: |
Experimented with the Surrealism idea of automatism.
Here he merged the styles of Picasso
and the Spanish surrealist Joan Miró,
whom he deeply admired. |
"Stenographic Figure" 1942 |
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| Mature Style: |
"Lavender Mist" 1950 |
Lavender Mist epitomizes Pollock's ultimate style,
in which physical action and emotional expression achieve balance.
It is an astounding tapestry of colour, poured, dripped, and
flung on the canvas. |
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There is no lavender on the canvas. The painting
is composed primarily of white, blue, yellow, grey, umber, rosy
pink, and black paint. |
| How: |
Pollock preferred the fluidity of commercial enamel
house paints to the more viscous texture of traditional oils.
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Pollock spread canvas on the floor in his barn
studio, or on the ground outside,
and then splashed, dripped, and poured colour straight from
cans of commercial house paint. |
Pollock painting |
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It was essential, he said, to "walk around
it, work from all four sides, and be in the painting, similar
to the Indian sand painters of the West."
Nicknamed “Jack the Dripper”. |
| Statement: |
I enjoy working on a large canvas. I feel
more at home, more at ease, in a big area.
Having the canvas on the floor I feel nearer, more a part of
the painting. This way I can walk around it, work from all four
sides and be in the painting, similar to the Indian sand painters
of the West.
Sometimes I use a brush but often prefer using a stick. Sometimes
I pour the paint straight out of the can. I like to use a dripping
fluid paint. I also use sand, broken glass, pebbles, string,
nails, or other foreign matter.
A method of painting is a natural growth out of a need. I want
to express my feelings rather than illustrate them.
Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement. When I
am painting I have a general notion of what I am about. I can
control the flow of the paint.
There is no accident, just as there is no beginning and no end.
Sometimes I lose a painting, but I have no fear of changes...of
destroying the image...because a painting has a life of its
own, I try to let it live. |
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"Autumn Rhythm No. 30"
1950 |
"Silver Oer Black" 1952 |
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Died in a car crash on August 20, 1956. |
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