Jackson Pollock

Artville artist of the day: Jackson Pollock

Title: Ocean Greyness
Year: 1953
Size: 57 3/4 x 90 1/8 inches (146.7 x 229 cm)
Medium: Oil on canvas

Jackson Pollock was an influential American painter, and the leading force behind the abstract expressionist movement in the art world. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. Jackson Pollock's greatness lies in developing one of the most radical abstract styles in the history of modern art, detaching line from color, redefining the categories of drawing and painting, and finding new means to describe pictorial space.

Jackson Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming in 1912. His father, LeRoy Pollock was a farmer and later a land surveyor for the government. Jackson Pollock grew up in Arizona and Chico, California. During his early life, Pollock experienced Native American culture while on surveying trips with his father. Although he never admitted an intentional imitation or following of Native American art, Jackson Pollock did concede that any similarities were probably a result of his "early memories and enthusiasms."

In 1929, Jackson Pollock studied at the Students' League in New York under regionalist painter, Thomas Hart Benton. During early 1930s, he worked in the Regionalist style, and was also influenced by Mexican muralist painter such as Digo Rivera, as well as by certain aspects of Surrealism - a 20th-century literary and artistic movement that attempts to express the workings of the subconscious by fantastic imagery and incongruous juxtaposition of subject matter.

In November 1939, The Museum of Modern Art in New York City mounted an important Picasso exhibition entitled: Picasso: 40 Years of His Art, which contained 344 works of Pablo Picasso and his famous anti-war mural, Guernica. The exhibit led Pollock to recognize the expressive power of European modernism, which he had previously rejected in favor of American art. He began to forge a new style of semi-abstract totemic compositions, refined through obsessive reworking.

#artvilleartistoftheday #jacksonpollock #oiloncanvas #oilpainting #art #artville

Courtesy: www.guggenheim.org