DES 136 Principles & Elements of Design II

Jackson Pollock

How did Jackson Pollock become a cult figure for the Beat Generation? And what caused his reputation to continue to soar? This compelling and original Abrams classic, now back in print, locates the artist in the continuum of his times, recreating the social and cultural milieu of New York in the 1940s and 1950s. With extensive knowledge of Pollock's habits (much of it gained through interviews), his reading, his conversation, and the exhibitions he visited, the author retraces many of the far-flung sources of Pollock's work. A wealth of comparative photographs that illustrate paintings by artists Pollock admired further explains the work of this complex, tragic, and immeasurably influential figure. Pollock's big, bold canvases are reproduced in five colors to convey the brilliance of his network of tones, his aluminum paint, and his sparkling collage materials. Six gatefolds show his vast horizontal works without distortion and a chronology provides a summary of the major events of Pollock's life.

Jackson Pollocks Mural

Jackson Pollock's major early work Mural (1943) was commissioned by Peggy Guggenheim for the entrance hall of her East 61st Street New York residence. Mural-sized, though not actually a mural--the work is painted on a six-meter-long canvas, not directly onto the wall--this vast, frieze-like panorama would be hugely influential in twentieth-century American art. In Jackson Pollock's Mural: Energy Made Visible, David Anfam explores the painting and its impact by way of the different themes it incorporates, including the imagery of action and process, the big picture, the "gothic," the body, dance, and Romanticism, relating them to art historical precedents, Abstract Expressionism, Pollock's psychology, and the context of American art and culture in the pre- and postwar years. This analysis is accompanied by reproductions of Pollock's work as well as imagery from the period that sheds light on the artist's development. Gifted to the University of Iowa Museum of Art in 1948, Mural has rarely traveled, and it is now the focus of a traveling exhibition curated by Anfam. This accompanying volume offers crucial analysis and historical background on one of Pollock's most significant works.

Illustrated Dictionary of Expressionism

Abstract Expressionism