Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912 – August 11, 1956) was an American painter. A major figure in the abstract expressionist movement, he was widely noticed for his "drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a horizontal surface, enabling him to view and paint his canvases from all angles. It was called all-over painting and action painting, because Pollock covered the entire canvas and used the force of his whole body to paint, often in a frenetic dancing style. This extreme form of abstraction divided critics: some praised the immediacy of the creation, while others derided the random effects.
A reclusive and volatile personality, Pollock struggled with alcoholism for most of his life. In 1945, he married artist Lee Krasner, who became an important influence on his career and on his legacy. Pollock died in August 1956 at age 44 in an alcohol-related single-car collision when he was driving. Four months after his death, Pollock was given a memorial retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. A larger, more comprehensive exhibition of his work was held there in 1967. In 1998 and 1999, Pollock's work was honored with large-scale retrospective exhibitions at MoMA and the Tate Gallery in London.
Paul Jackson Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming, on January 28, 1912, the youngest of five brothers. His parents, Stella May (née McClure) and LeRoy Pollock, were born and grew up in Tingley, Iowa, and were educated at Tingley High School. Stella is interred at Tingley Cemetery, Ringgold County, Iowa. His father had been born with the surname McCoy, but he took the surname of his adoptive parents. Stella and LeRoy Pollock were Presbyterian; they were of Irish and Scots-Irish descent, respectively. LeRoy was a farmer and later a land surveyor for the government, moving for different jobs. Stella, proud of her family's heritage as weavers, made and sold dresses as a teenager. In November 1912, Stella took her sons to San Diego; Jackson was just 10 months old and would never return to Cody. He subsequently grew up in Arizona and Chico, California.
While living in the Vermont Square neighborhood of Los Angeles, Pollock enrolled at Manual Arts High School, from which he was expelled. Pollock had already been expelled in 1928 from another high school. During his early life, Pollock explored Native American culture while on surveying trips with his father. Pollock was also heavily influenced by Mexican muralists, particularly José Clemente Orozco, whose fresco Prometheus he would later call "the greatest painting in North America".
In 1930, following his older brother Charles, Pollock moved to New York City, where they both studied under Thomas Hart Benton at the Art Students League. Benton's rural American subject matter had little influence on Pollock's work, but his rhythmic use of paint and his fierce independence were more lasting. In the early 1930s, Pollock spent a summer touring the Western United States together with Glen Rounds, a fellow art student, and Benton, their teacher.
Pollock was introduced to the use of liquid paint in 1936 at an experimental workshop in New York City by the Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros. That summer, Pollock went to Dartmouth College to study José Clemente Orozco's 3,200 square foot mural, The Epic of American Civilization. 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 moving to Springs, New York, Pollock began painting with his canvases laid out on the studio floor and he developed what was later called his "drip" technique.
From 1938 to 1942, Pollock worked for the WPA Federal Art Project. During this time, he was trying to deal with his established alcoholism; from 1938 through 1941, Pollock underwent Jungian psychotherapy with Dr. Joseph L. Henderson and later with Dr. Violet Staub de Laszlo from 1941 to 1942. Henderson engaged him through his art, encouraging Pollock to make drawings. Jungian concepts and archetypes were expressed in his paintings. Some psychiatrists have hypothesized that Pollock might have had bipolar disorder.
Pollock signed a gallery contract with Peggy Guggenheim in July 1943. He received the commission to create the 8-by-20-foot (2.4 by 6.1 m) Mural (1943) for the entry to her new townhouse. At the suggestion of her friend and advisor Marcel Duchamp, Pollock painted the work on canvas, rather than the wall, so that it would be portable. After seeing the big mural, the art critic Clement Greenberg wrote: "I took one look at it and I thought, 'Now that's great art,' and I knew Jackson was the greatest painter this country had produced." The catalog introducing his first exhibition described Pollock's talent as "volcanic. It has fire. It is unpredictable. It is undisciplined. It spills out of itself in a mineral prodigality, not yet crystallized."
Pollock's most famous paintings were made during the "drip period" between 1947 and 1950. However, when investigating the impact that other artists have had on him and his "drip paintings", the time that Pollock spent working and studying in the Experimental Workshop with David Alfaro Siqueiros in 1936 is rarely investigated or acknowledged. According to Robert Storr, "there is no other experience in his professional life that is equal to the decade that he spent learning from and observing the modern Mexican muralists…," especially when comparing this period of informal training to his formal education with Thomas Hart Benton, which, although critical to his beginnings, was short lived. Additionally, when specifically asked about how the "drip" came to be, Pollock disavowed his association with Siqueiros on multiple occasions and made contradictory statements. For example, in 1947, Pollock suggests that he painted his canvases on the floor because he witnessed the Navajo sand artist at the Natural History Museum in New York do it in 1941 (five years after he witnessed Siqueiros do it in 1936), and soon after, he suggested that he painted his canvases on the floor because "the Orientals did it".
Eventually, he became famous for his "drip" paintings and was the subject of an article in the 8 August 1949 issue of LIFE titled "Jackson Pollock: Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?" Thanks to the mediation of Alfonso Ossorio, a close friend of Pollock, and the art historian Michel Tapié, the young gallery owner Paul Facchetti, from March 7, 1952, managed to realize the first exhibition of Pollock's works from 1948 to 1951 in his Studio Paul Facchetti in Paris and in Europe. At the peak of his fame, Pollock abruptly abandoned the drip style. Pollock's drip paintings were influenced by the artist Janet Sobel; the art critic Clement Greenberg would later report that Pollock "admitted" to him that Sobel's work "had made an impression on him."
Pollock's work after 1951 was darker in color, including a collection painted in black on unprimed canvases. These paintings have been referred to as his "Black pourings" and when he exhibited them at the Betty Parsons Gallery in New York, none of them sold. Parsons later sold one to a friend at half the price. These works show Pollock attempting to find a balance between abstraction and depictions of the figure.
Pollock later returned to using color and continued with figurative elements. During this period, he had moved to the Sidney Janis Gallery, a more commercial gallery; the demand for Pollock's work from collectors was great. In response to this pressure, along with personal frustration, his alcoholism deepened.
Pollock and Lee Krasner met while they both exhibited at the McMillen Gallery in 1942. Krasner was unfamiliar yet intrigued with Pollock's work and went to his apartment, unannounced, to meet him following the gallery exhibition. In October 1945, Pollock and Krasner were married in a church with two witnesses present for the event. In November, they moved out of the city to the Springs area of East Hampton on the south shore of Long Island. With the help of a down-payment loan from Peggy Guggenheim, they bought a wood-frame house and barn at 830 Springs Fireplace Road. Pollock converted the barn into a studio. In that space, he perfected his "drip" technique of working with paint, with which he would become permanently identified. When the couple found themselves free from work, they enjoyed spending their time together cooking and baking, working on the house and garden, and entertaining friends.