One of the most well - known , and quintessentially American , artist of the twentieth century is undoubtedly Jackson Pollock . Even if you conceive of his famous " dripping " technique as something so elementary a child could do it , his celebrity has been securely cement in the American awareness . Public and secret collections all over the mankind admit Pollock ’s work , and one – " turn 5 1948 , " hash out later in this article – is reportedly the most expensive painting ever sell at auction sale , with a cost tag of $ 140 million [ source : Pilkington ] . Pollock ’s life has become virtually as renowned as his picture , due to his battle with potomania and unseasonable death . In 2000 , actor and managing director Ed Harris put out the biographical movie " Pollock , " which win critical kudos and an Academy Award for the underpin performance of Marcia Gay Harden , who play Pollock ’s wife , Lee Krasner .
Though his consistence of study falls into a number of categories throughout his career , most critic consort Pollock with the movement known as Abstract Expressionism . As a participant in the movement ’s emergence in New York in the previous thirties and 1940s , Pollock seek to abandon the common figure of speech and methods of earlier aesthetic school . The Abstract Expressionists ( who were never a formal mathematical group , and only name so later ) localize tremendous value on the process of produce art , something they see as being of adequate importance with the last product . Other artists in the motility included Mark Rothko , Willem de Kooning and Barnett Newman , all of whom were inspired by European contemporaneousness . The work of such creative person asPablo Picasso , Henri Matisseand Wassily Kandinsky was exhibit in New York during the growth of the Abstract Expressionist apparent motion , and had a tremendous shock on the artists working in and around the city then [ seed : Metropolitan Museum of Art ] .
In turn , Jackson Pollock influenced scores of other artist . By popularizing the process of " activity picture , " he bring a storey of performance to the art world that it had never ensure before . And Pollock and his fellow Abstract Expressionists put their land firmly on the function of the modernist artistic production landscape .
Jackson Pollock’s Early Life and Influences
Paul Jackson Pollock was born on Jan. 28 , 1912 , in the small town of Cody , Wyo . At the fourth dimension of his birth , Pollock ’s parent , Stella and LeRoy , were sheep farmer . After the sept ’s attack at farming proved unsuccessful , LeRoy Pollock took a business as a governing surveyor , which led the family to place like Arizona and California . Pollock ’s travels in the American West leave an indelible mark on the creative person and his work . Native American gumption house painting arguably had the greatest effect on his hardheaded process ; like sand picture , Pollock ’s most noted piece of work were done on a flat surface , where he could come near them from all sides . The stress on process , and not just the final ware , became Pollock ’s theme song style . Native American motifs also found their way into some of Pollock ’s early whole works . " Birth , " for example , expend imagery from traditional Inuit nontextual matter [ source : Tate Collection ] .
At the age of 18 , Pollock moved to New York City to take at the Art Students League . There he work with a issue of well - know artists , include Thomas Hart Benton and Mexican artist Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros . Pollock was drawn to their large - scale murals , a predilection later reflected in his oversized works . Benton was particularly influential during Pollock ’s former metre in New York , encourage the young creative person to learn the Old Masters . Throughout the 1930s , Pollock observed , attend and even posed for the muralists , letting their influence guide his own work . Pollock was bid to participate in his first expo , hold at the Brooklyn Museum , in 1932 . Five old age later , he fall in the Works Progress Administration ’s Federal Art Program [ source : The Art Story ] . Part of Franklin Roosevelt ’s New Deal , the Works Progress Administration ( WPA ) programs were created to supply workplace for people during theGreat Depression . The Federal Art Program ( FAP ) was specifically gear toward commissioning murals , canvas , post-horse and sculptures that were patriotic and figurative , rather than nonobjective . Pollock ’s own work speculate that tendency , though by the time he leave the FAP in 1943 , his art was heading in a by all odds abstract steering .
Jackson Pollock’s Success and Decline
One of Jackson Pollock ’s fellow artists in the WPA was a woman identify Lee Krasner . Like Pollock , her workplace focused on abstract expressionism , and each was increasingly influence by the other . In 1945 , the two creative person get hitched with and move to Springs , N.Y. , on Long Island . The move was finance by Pollock ’s patron and trader , Peggy Guggenheim , at whose gallery his work would be usher in to the New York aesthetic elite group . It was at the studio in Springs where Pollock began to cement what would become his touch style , known as " action painting . " Pollock would wheel out a canvas on his studio apartment floor , tacking it down rather than stretching it on a wood skeleton , and then attack it with paint . Rather than using a cushy blusher clash , as most artist of the day choose , Pollock used stick , loaded brush and even turkey basters to attain the desired effect . Thus , the sticks and brushes were merely vehicles for the key , and seldom ( if ever ) make out into unmediated contact with the canvas . Though the result painting bet random and inadvertent , Pollock insisted that he began each work with an theme of how it should look at the end .
The old age between 1947 and 1950 became do it as Jackson Pollock ’s " Drip Period . " His work during the Drip Period stimulate a sense in not only the fine art reality , but also in the encompassing sphere of pop music culture ; Life magazine even release an article about his work in August 1949 [ generator : Pollock Krasner House ] . The press nicknamed him " Jack the Dripper . " But the window of his success was abbreviated .
Pollock ’s bother with alcohol and depression began in his teenage years . For brief stretches of time , he remained sombre , but ineluctably Pollock slid back down into the battle with alcoholism . His sudden popularity and the follow demand for more paintings led him to suddenly abandon his action picture in 1951 . He returned to the more figural deeds of his other vocation , and used drear colors more frequently . His relationship with his wife , Lee , became strained . On Aug. 11 , 1956 , Pollock was force less than a air mile from his home base , with his girlfriend Ruth Kligman and a woman named Edith Metzger in the railcar . Pollock was inebriated and crashed the fomite . No other railcar were involved . Both Pollock and Metzger were drink down in the crash ; Pollock was just 44 years old .
Jackson Pollock Paintings
" Landscape with Steer , " paint between 1936 and 1937 , exemplify the introduction with which Pollock experiment during that time . In the spring of 1936 , Pollock frequented the " Laboratory " of David Alfaro Siqueiros , who was interested in using non - traditional picture techniques like airbrush and pour out . Pollock used the airbrushing technique in " Landscape with Steer , " adding an abstract lavation to the more naturalistic landscape painting [ reservoir : Warhol Stars ] . The titular theme thing is also important to note , as it reflects both the influence of the American West and the thematic choices of Pollock ’s fellow WPA artists . This painting reside at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City .
In the late thirties and early 1940s , Jackson Pollock work with Jungian analyst to deal with his alcoholism and depression . The therapist used Pollock ’s art as part of his discussion , and one of the leave whole works was " Male and Female . " Pollock was drawn to the operation of psychoanalysis as it related to his picture ; he feel that tapping into his subconscious gave his work more genuineness and symbolism [ author : New World Encyclopedia ] . The subject of this particular work are , as the statute title suggests , male and female figure . Both are extremely abstract and depict in sheer main colors . During his period of Jungian depth psychology , Pollock closely studied the works of the Surrealist artist Joan Miró and the CubistPablo Picasso . Both artists distorted the human form in their work , just as Pollock did in " Male and Female . " This one ’s in the assemblage of the Philadelphia Museum of Art .
During his Drip Period , Pollock give up the use of titles for his paintings , and or else identified them by number and year . Pollock ’s grounds for this was to avoid distracting the viewer with his own personal prejudice , allow their own idea about the painting to come to the fore [ informant : Columbia University ] . One such numbered painting is " Number 5 1948 . " In many fashion , this house painting is the prototypic Pollock , with its bold colors , tumid size ( 4 feet by 8 feet , or 1.23 meters by 2.44 meter ) and frenzy of paint drop . painting like " act 5 " have led scientist to study Pollock ’s technique in full term offractals , mathematical ratios considered to be sodding and found most often in nature . Mathematicians have been able to chart the evolution of Pollock ’s drip proficiency using fractals , accurately authenticate and dating the painting establish on the mathematics hidden within [ generator : Connor ] . Currently , " Number 5 1948 " is owned by a private collector .
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