Between genius and madness… theartiste American Jackson Pollock was already controversial during his lifetime: some celebrated his extraordinary drip paintings and considered him a genius, others only took into account his years of excessive drinking and violence, mostly directed against women. But probably the biggest doubter of him was Pollock himself.
Childhood and schooling of Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock was born on January 28, 1912 in Cody, Wyoming. He is the youngest son of LeRoy Pollock and Stella May. The daily life of the family is marked by frequent changes of residence and the bouts of violence of his alcoholic father, who leaves the family home when Jackson is only eight years old. His brother, ten years older than him, Charles, then tries to take on the role of head of the family.
Jackson’s studies in New York with his brother Charles
At the age of 16, Jackson left high school to settle with his mother in The Angels and take courses at Manual Arts High School, a school specially designed for learning crafts. A few months after graduating in 1927, he joined his brothers at New York. Charles encourages his brother to join the Art Students League, an association of art students, to follow the teaching of Thomas Hart Benton. It was also Charles who showed him the murals of the painters José Clemente Orozco and Diego Rivera, whose influence on Pollock’s early work is proven.
During his time at the Art Students League, Pollock was heavily influenced by the work of Thomas Hart Benton. Benton is considered at the time as one of the main representatives of regionalism, a current opposed to theavant-garde European, in surrealism as well as abstract art. Benton focuses on the most realistic and naturalistic depiction of the American working class in rural western Canada. This style being mainly taught and practiced in New York takes the name of School of New York. When Thomas Hart Benton left town and the association in 1935, Jackson Pollock, who had completed his training, stood out for his extreme drinking and violence, visibly triggered by the death of his father in 1933.
The first professional and private successes of Jackson Pollock
In 1935, Jackson Pollock was hired by the Federal Arts Project, a government aid project for artists and artisans during the world economic crisis. He meets the artist David Alfaro Siqueiros, with whom he works on paintings antifascists. It was also with him that he learned to use paint guns and other unconventional techniques such as dripping and pouring liquid paint.
His meeting with the artist Lee Krasner
In 1942 theartiste and collagist Lee Krasner notices the work Birth of Pollock at an exhibition. Only a few months after their meeting, the couple moved into an apartment. The intensity of their emotional relationship, but also artistic, increased the productivity of Pollock, who produced his famous painting Male and Female during their first years together. In the early 1940s, we can detect some influences from European painters such as Pablo Picasso or Joan Miró. At Miró, Pollock is mainly inspired by color gradients and the cubist and surrealist style. It is therefore not surprising that experts consider the painting The She Wolf, also made at this time, as atypical for Pollock. They think they recognize in the abstract representation the wolf of Romulus and Remus from Roman mythology. A few months later, Pollock sold the canvas to the Museum of Modern Art of New York for 650 dollars and thus earns money for the first time through its creation.