Jackson Pollock was an American abstract expressionist painter. He is best known for his painting method of pouring or dripping paint onto large canvasses placed on the floor.
(Paul) Jackson Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming, on January 28, 1912. He first studied art at the Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles, California, under the painter and illustrator Frederick John de St. Vrain Schwankowsky. In addition to learning painting techniques, he was introduced by Schwankowsky to European and Mexican modernism, as well as being exposed to the spiritual doctrine of Theosophy, the theories of analytical psychology, and Surrealist automatism.
In 1929 he moved to New York City, where he studied at the Art Students League with the Regionalist Thomas Hart Benton. He worked as a mural assistant for the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project. His early works reflect the influence of Benton.
In 1938, being hospitalized for alcoholism, he turned his attention to automatic drawing, using surrealist-style iconographic symbols.
In 1943 Pollock worked at the Museum of Non-Objective Art (later to be known as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum), doing odd jobs. This museum was founded originally in homage to Kandinsky and his followers in 1937. He had his first one-man show in 1943, which was followed by 10 more solo exhibitions in New York within the next 11 years.
From 1943-1947 Pollock painted in a semi-abstract, expressionist style, using totemic and symbolic motifs, particularly animal, human, and bird forms. This is considered his first period of work.
In the decade following World War II, the United States, and New York in particular, became the world center of the modernist movement in painting, whose artists were both native-born and European émigrés. Pollock was one of the leaders of the so-called New York School of painters, and produced his best work during the years 1947-1950. This period of his work is characterized by the dripping and pouring of household enamel or radiator paint onto canvas placed on the floor using a stick or a trowel dipped into the paint can. His first exhibit in this style was at the Betty Parsons Gallery in January 1948. Other shows followed until 1950.
Pollock was married to fellow painter Lee Krasner in 1945.
Pollock died in East Hampton, New York, in 1956, the victim of an automobile accident.
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