Jackson Pollock American, 1912-1956

Jackson Pollock was one of the most famous Post-War American artists. A pioneer of Abstract Expressionism, Pollock’s drip paintings ushered in a new era of non-representational art. “It doesn't make much difference how the paint is put on as long as something has been said,” he once remarked. “Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement.” Born Paul Jackson Pollock on January 28, 1912 in Cody, WY, he studied painting at the Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles during the late 1920s, where he befriended Philip Guston. In the fall of 1930, Pollock moved to New York where he studied under the Regionalist painter Thomas Hart Benton at the Art Students League. Joining the WPA in 1937, Pollock painted murals around the country in a style reminiscent both of Benton and the Mexican muralist José Clemente Orozco. After the WPA program ended, Pollock took on a number of odd jobs and began producing Surrealist works related to those of Joan Miró. An early champion of his work, Peggy Guggenheim hosted Pollock’s first solo show at her gallery Art of This Century in 1943. The paintings that emerged from his Long Island studio during the late 1940s came to exemplify his entire career. Works such as Blue Poles (1952), generated enormous media attention, and turned Pollock into a celebrity beyond the scope of the art world. At the age of 44, his celebrated career was cut short when the artist died in a car accident involving his mistress Ruth Kligman, on August 11, 1956 in East Hampton, NY. He was survived by his wife the painter Lee Krasner. In 2006, Pollock’s No. 5 (1948) was sold by David Geffen for $140 million, setting a new record for the highest-priced painting ever. Today, his works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Tate Gallery in London, among others.