Jackson Pollock (1912-1956)
Wyoming
Wyoming
The greatest representative of American Abstract Expressionism is one of art collectors’ most sought after prizes. Very few creators achieve such a unanimous response from critics as he does, while his works are found at the top of the international price ranking.
Jackson Pollock began his training at the Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles, and at the age of 17 he entered the Art Students’ League in New York, where he became a disciple of Thomas Hart Benton. Benton introduced him to the work of the Mexican muralists, so influential in Pollock’s figurative period, characterized by extremely material canvases, full of Native American symbols.
By the 1940s, Pollock had become attracted by the Surrealism of that decade, which was very influential in the United States, due to the presence of European intellectuals who had fled from the Nazi regime and the war. He was fascinated by Surrealistic automatism, the rupture with moral concepts of the established system and the recovery of the figure of the antihero.
Jackson Pollock participated in the group show that the Peggy Guggenheim gallery dedicated to “Art in This Century” in 1942. Peggy was his patron, and it was she who introduced Pollock to Clement Greenberg, an influential Art critic, who was to back him throughout his career. In 1946 this famous collector proposed to Pollock his first individual show, which would be followed by many others. His style became more and more free from that time on, tending toward the abstraction of forms without completely abandoning figurative representation.
It was from 1947 on when Pollock’s style turned completely abstract in canvases that were the fruit of experimentation with the recently conceived Action Painting techniques. Pollock placed himself physically over the piece, spreading the canvas on the floor and dripping the paint onto it. He also mixed his colors with sand and ground glass to achieve fuller textures. The results were surprising, with compositions that do not have a specific center, as the canvas would often be cut afterwards to adapt it to the frame. A technique that would forever influence most young artists of the twentieth century.
Jackson Pollock died in 1956, the victim of a traffic accident. He was only 44 years old, and he had become a genuine legend of contemporary Art, always true to his primitive feelings, that he let flow freely without the intervention of thought.
Jackson Pollock began his training at the Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles, and at the age of 17 he entered the Art Students’ League in New York, where he became a disciple of Thomas Hart Benton. Benton introduced him to the work of the Mexican muralists, so influential in Pollock’s figurative period, characterized by extremely material canvases, full of Native American symbols.
By the 1940s, Pollock had become attracted by the Surrealism of that decade, which was very influential in the United States, due to the presence of European intellectuals who had fled from the Nazi regime and the war. He was fascinated by Surrealistic automatism, the rupture with moral concepts of the established system and the recovery of the figure of the antihero.
Jackson Pollock participated in the group show that the Peggy Guggenheim gallery dedicated to “Art in This Century” in 1942. Peggy was his patron, and it was she who introduced Pollock to Clement Greenberg, an influential Art critic, who was to back him throughout his career. In 1946 this famous collector proposed to Pollock his first individual show, which would be followed by many others. His style became more and more free from that time on, tending toward the abstraction of forms without completely abandoning figurative representation.
It was from 1947 on when Pollock’s style turned completely abstract in canvases that were the fruit of experimentation with the recently conceived Action Painting techniques. Pollock placed himself physically over the piece, spreading the canvas on the floor and dripping the paint onto it. He also mixed his colors with sand and ground glass to achieve fuller textures. The results were surprising, with compositions that do not have a specific center, as the canvas would often be cut afterwards to adapt it to the frame. A technique that would forever influence most young artists of the twentieth century.
Jackson Pollock died in 1956, the victim of a traffic accident. He was only 44 years old, and he had become a genuine legend of contemporary Art, always true to his primitive feelings, that he let flow freely without the intervention of thought.