On 11 August 1956, the art world lost one of its most innovative American artists. Jackson Pollock died in a car accident and took with him the secrets of his work (which had been controversial) specifically the art of "drippings" (which he had engaged in from 1947 to1950). Among the collections of the Museum National d'Art Moderne in Centre Georges Pompidou, Number 26A, Black and White (1948) is the painting of that period. But is this work characteristic of the originality of Pollock's artistic production at the time? Several elements are required to answer this question: firstly, the significant facts of Pollock's life and the formal description of the work and its analysis to place it in context.
Biographical indices of an artist can prove to be invaluable in the analysis of his works. It is the same in the case of Jackson Pollock whose life and personality played a major role in the development of his paintings. Despite the many gray areas left by the artist, from correspondence with his family and friends, interviews and films and photos by HansNamuth (see fig. 1), we can gain information in several areas such as his education and his artistic influences, the evolution of his career, as well as the problems he encountered, including his alcoholism and his psychoanalysis.
Paul Jackson Pollock was born on January 28, 1912 in Cody, Wyoming, western United States. After many moves, the family settled in Los Angeles in 1922, allowing Pollock to follow his education at the Otis Art Institute and work as a designer at the Los Angeles Times. Throughout his teens, Jackson Pollock traveled across the United States several times and discovered "primitive art" of American Indian tribes that would strongly influence his later works which would show strong strains of Indian iconography (see fig.2 ).
In 1926 he decided to move to New York where he enrolled at the Art Students League and met his teacher and future mentor, Thomas Hart Benton. Pollock painting technique was deepened by his knowledge in art history. The two artists developed in the first half of the thirties, paintings that evolves in the context of regionalism. Two paintings illustrate this period: Going West by Pollock and The Ballad of the Jealous Lover of Lone Green Valley by Benton. After many years of friendship, in response to the strong personality of Benton, Pollock felt the need to assert his independence and headed more towards the abstraction that Benton rejects.
Tags: Thomas Hart Benton, Going West, Jackson Pollock, the art of "drippings"
[...] All these influences, Pollock made a real art of synthesis which it draws its originality. Number 26A: Black and White this work can address complex from a formal point of view at first. Preserved in National d'Art Moderne Centre Georges Pompidou Museum in the inventory number AM 1948-312, the table is an enamel paint (enamel) on canvas measuring 205x121,7 cm. This painting shows both the technique of dripping recovery and developed by the artist, associated with notions of all-over and automation. [...]
[...] The main purpose of abstract paintings by Pollock and particularly Number 26A is pure painting, without subject or object defined. The dripping is the technique to do so by taking a key role in the creative process involving the artist, his body and mind fully in the work. The result is a non-objective painting that appeals to "inside the painter and his unconscious", without it having any clear picture in mind. In this conceptual idea of the work, shows the influences of Pollock both artistic and psychological. [...]
[...] Similarly, the traditional formal perspective is abolished and is replaced by a depth created by the superposition of the colored forms. The absorbed painting allows a working between the material and the support. This animated surface colors and shapes allows light to play between matter accumulated liquid paint and interstices of the material of the raw canvas. Thus are born the reflections of the colored frame. The use of black and white in Number 26A: Black and White is characteristic of Pollock technique. A balance is created between painting and drawing. [...]
[...] It is through the dripping he has reached his goal illustrated by Number 26A: Black and White. This purpose would explain the artist's return to figuration after 1951, while trying to change the dripping in the table The Deep (see ill.14 and 15). It was hard to be inspired by Pollock without risking the copy. This is why some artists and movements have used the more conceptual idea that technology, advocating the involvement and highlighted the action of the creator. [...]
[...] Photography of Pollock in his studio in 1950 by Hans Namuth 2. The Moon-Woman cuts the Circle oil on canvas, 109x104 cm, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris Going West, 1934-1938, oil on panel, 35x53 cm, National Museum of American Art, Washington The Ballad of the Jealous Lover of Lone Green Valley oil on canvas, 107x135 cm, Spencer Museum of Art (University of Kansas). Thomas Hart Benton Mural of Siqueiros: Soldiers Zapata. 6.Mural Diego Rivera, the National Palace, Mexico The She-Wolf oil, gouache and plaster on canvas, 106x170 cm, The Museum of Modern Art, New York Number 26A: Black and White enamel paint on canvas, 205x121 cm, Museum of Modern Art, Paris Cathedral aluminum and oil painting on canvas, 181x89 cm, Museum of Fine Art, Dallas Full Fathom Five oil, nails, seeds, buttons, keys, coins, cigarettes, matches on canvas, 129x76 cm, The Museum of Modern Art, New York Composition oil on canvas, 200x175 cm, Guggenheim Museum, New York. [...]
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