Jackson Pollock: veiling the image

256 Pages·2012·102.057 MB·English

by  Pollock, Jackson, Wigal, Donald

Pollock
Veiling the Image
Donald Wigal
Text: Donald Wigal
Layout:
Baseline Co Ltd
127-129 A Nguyen Hue
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© Parkstone Press USA, New York.
© Confidential Concepts, worldwide, USA.
© Pollock Estate / Artists Rights Society, New York, USA.
© Daros Collection, Switzerland / Artists Rights Society, New York, USA, p. 196
© Barnett Newman / Artists Rights Society, New York, USA, p. 132
© Mark Rothko / Artists Rights Society, New York, USA, p. 235
© Ruth Kligman, p. 246
© Willem de Kooning Estate / Artists Right Society, New York, USA p. 235
© Adolph Gottlieg Estate / Artists Rights Society, New York / ADAGP, Paris, p. 220
© Robert Motherwell Estate / Artists Rights Society, New York / ADAGP, Paris, p. 135
© Rudolph Burckard / Artists Rights Society, New York . ADAGP, Paris, pp. 242-244
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced or adapted without the permission of
the copyright holder, throughout the world. Unless otherwise specified, copyrights on
the works reproduced lies with the respective photographers. Despite intensive
research, it has not always been possible to establish copyright ownership.
Where this is the case we would appreciate notification.
ISBN: 978-1-78042-973-1
PP
JJ
ackson ollock
Veiling the Image
Donald Wigal
A
CKNOWLEDGEMENT
The author acknowledges Ruth Kligman; Athos Zacharius; the Art Chronicles of the Smithsonian; Jerry Saltz, Village Voiceart
critic; photographer Robin Holland; artists James Cullina of ArtSleuth, Bob Stanley, Kathy Segall, and Bill Rabinovitch; authors
Carmel Reingold, James Robert Parish, George Sullivan, Susan Waggoner, and William Kuhns; agents Stephany Evans, Elaina
Zucker, Robert Markel; Barlow Hartman and Mercedes Ruehl; James Yohe of Ameringer/Yohe/Fine Art; Tina Dickey, editor of
the Hans Hofmann Catalogue Raisonné; Maggie Seildon of Jason McCoy Gallery; Cheryl Orlick of the Albright-Knox Art
Gallery; Bradley D. Cook of Indiana University Archives; Jennifer Ickes of the New Orleans Museum of Art; Isabelle Dervaux,
Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, National Academy Museum; Verity Hawson, Lillian Kiesler, Cornelia Sontag,
Bérangère Mardelé, and Eliane de Sérésin of Parkstone Press; for research support, Bro. Frank O’Donnell, Edie LaGuardia Hansen,
Dr. Mark Cooper and Gene Carney; Vera Haldy for German translation; Herbert Verbesey and Gerard Sullivan for the Latin
dedication; Antonio Bautista, Michael Morris; Cheryl Murray of Entertainment Law Digest; also, Alternative Research for on-
line research; Richart Taylor and his Jackson Pollock center at the University of Oregon.
Thanks to Catherine O’Reilly for her dedication, generosity, meticulous and expert editorial input on this and a dozen books over
the past 25 years.
DEDICATION
I dedicate this work to these colleagues with whom I share a common bond. They generously made my work this past year
possible: Tom Brenn, Paul Cibrowski, Joe Clark, Richard Csarny, Jim Cullina, Gene Carney, Jim DeVito, Joe Fagan, Bill Gannon, Brian
Griffin, Bob Higdon, John Kane, Mel Kubander, Joe LaSala, Joe Manzo, Joe Maurer, Charlie Miller, Bob Moriarty, SM, Frank
O’Donnell, SM, Andy Oravets, Frank Poliafico, Bob Schult, Bruce Segall, Rhett Segall, John Spellman, Brian Trick, Herb Verbesey,
Joe Wessling, Ken White, and Jim Wolf. Gestas cum sociis res meminisse juvat. (It delights me to remember all the things we shared
together).
—Donald Wigal
Manhattan, 2005
C
ONTENTS
Foreword 7
Introduction 9
The Myth of the Artist Cowboy 17
Struggling During Early Years: Making Energy Visible 105
Brilliant Peak Years: Art as Self-Discovery 183
The Genius of His Gesture: Involving Art and Others in His Self-Destruction 217
Appendix 248
Bibliography, Selected Resources and Notes 249
Index 254
The writer has tried to be accurate in referencing. However, there are very likely errors here, especially in the chronological order of events,
and the titles and dates of works. For the first two years or so after publication, corrections and updates may be available in English from
[email protected].
Abbreviations
AbEx Abstract Expressionism
AOTC Art of This Century, Manhattan
Benton Thomas Hart Benton
Guggenheim Peggy Guggenheim
Krasner Lee Krasner
MoMA Museum of Modern Art, Manhattan
Pollock Jackson Pollock
F
OREWORD
E
ach of the four sections of this book refers to a span of at least ten years. Each subsection, usually covering one year,
opens by noting historical events relative at least indirectly to Pollock, or offers some significant backdrop to his life. Events named
within that year are not necessarily presented here in strict chronological order. This book should not be relied on for trying to
create a strict chronology of details.
Although several interviews and over twenty biographies of Pollock were referred to while researching this work, when referring
to ‘Pollock’s biographers’ without specific names, the reference is to the extensive work of Naifeh & Smith. Likewise, ‘de Kooning’s
biographers’ always refer to Stevens & Swan. ‘Peggy Guggenheim’s biographer’ always refers to Mary V. Dearborn.
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I
NTRODUCTION
F
ifty years ago the artist Jackson Pollock died, but he lives on in his biographies and especially in his “It is just a matter of time and work now for
work. However, much of his genius was expressed by how he veiled the visible while he unveiled the me to have that knowledge a part of me. A
good seventy years more and I’ll make a good
invisible.
artist.”(403)
A survey of the main events of Pollock’s life might lift some of the veils from his troubled soul and his
– Age 20
amazing work, as well as explain somewhat his turbulent times. However, this overview offers no definitive
explanation for either Pollock’s behaviour or his genius. It is intended to offer an opportunity to stand
before the man and his oeuvre and be perplexed by the negatives, in awe of the positives, and aware of
the ambiguities.
However, it may be that by veiling himself and his art as he so uniquely did, Pollock paradoxically
revealed much of his interior life, thereby making it possible to see and better understand therein
something of his spiritual journey – if not also something of the universal human journey.
Many of the events of Pollock’s life and much of his radically new art proved to be mystical yet profane,
ugly yet awesome. At times the artist, like his art, appears to be innocent, graceful and sensitive. At the
same time his life and art might seem to be crude, macho and abrasive. The biographer Andrea Gabor
observes him to be “brilliant and naïve, gentle and aggressive, vulnerable and destructive.” She observes,
“Few artists… seemed to personify the masculine excesses of the era more completely than Jackson
Pollock who came to represent an archetype of unbridled artistic vitality.” (427)
The cycles of Pollock’s life and art at times overlap, as they are sometimes seen as a child-man, angel-
beast, and creator-destroyer. Many observers of his work are kept at a distance by what is ugly and yet
pulled into what is beautiful in the realities of the artist’s rugged presence and his brilliant achievements.
At the same time his private, self-destructive compulsions and isolation ironically drove him to his highly
public end fifty years ago.
Several interesting sub-themes in Pollock’s life are not developed here, including his relationship with
his brothers’ families, his love of dogs, and his fascination with old cars, and speeding. Rather, one purpose
of this concise overview of Pollock’s life and this selection of reproductions of some of his works is to help
put his works into an historical context.
However, what Pollock said of his The She-Wolf is surely true of his works in general:
“Any attempt on my part to say something about it, to attempt any explanation of the inexplicable,
could only destroy it.”
Yet, some viewers probably need help in reaching that point where art is experienced simply as art,
ideally with some knowledge of it as well.
Some fans of Pollock’s art in particular might prefer to know nothing of the artist’s turbulent life. The
following biographical sketch is presented especially for those for whom such knowledge enhances
viewing. There are also art lovers who find scientific analysis of art helpful, while other viewers do not. For
the former, consideration could be given to Richard Taylor, the professor of physics at the University of
Untitled (Self-portrait), 1931-1935.
Oregon. His crucial and amazing studies are of fractal expressionism and the so-called chaotic processes in
Oil on gesso on canvas, mounted on fibreboard, 18.4 x 13.3 cm,
the work of Pollock (107). The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, New York.
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Reproductions
For many readers the reproductions, no matter how elegant, are at best like postcards reminding them of
“I’m just now getting into painting again and the art itself, for which there is admittedly no perfect substitute. It was suggested the first two plates be
the stuff is really beginning to flow. Grand represented in the actual size of the artwork, because those works are small.
feeling when it happens.”(426)
However, it should be pointed out that plates are often not in proportion to the actual size of the art
– Age 36
works; small and large works might appear to be about equal in size on these printed pages. In one
Pollock biography, for example, a reproduction of Picasso’s Guernica is one-third the height of Pollock’s
Birth, reproduced on the facing page. However, the actual height of the Picasso work is three times the
height of Pollock’s Birth.
The chronology of main events presented here generally follows the order presented in dozens of
published biographies, albeit other facts and especially the order in which Pollock’s works were actually
completed might differ. Historical chronology here is often sacrificed for thematic development.
Titles of Paintings
Asked about the numbered titles of Pollock paintings, Lee Krasner said Pollock’s focus was to have people
appreciate the pure painting rather than to be distracted by the titles. In the August 1950 New Yorker
interview Pollock explained, “I decided to stop adding to the confusion…” caused by word titles. However,
subsequent works were sometimes numbered, sometimes given word titles, sometimes both. The same
work might be in different exhibitions under different titles. The alphabetical listing at the end of this work
is primarily of the titles as in each exhibition, rather than to the paintings, although some consolidation
has been attempted.
For complete data see the four-volume Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings, Drawings and Other Works,
edited by Francis V. O’Connor and Eugene V. Thaw, and published by Yale University Press (1978), with a
supplement published by the Pollock-Krasner Foundation in 1995.
Often the words in the titles of Pollock works have little, if anything, to do with the painting. For
example, see the commentary below in the section on 1943 about the painting Moby Dick. Gallery owner
Betty Parsons added the letter A to some titles, indicating they were probably exhibited but not sold in
1948.
However, they may also not have been painted in the year indicated in the title. Subsequent titles would
include numbers, words, and combinations thereof, some with and some without dates included in the
title. Moreover, neither numbers nor dates imply a chronological order. The titles are listed in chronological
order by the years the paintings were done, if known, or the year named in the title.
Included in titles presented here are the two sets in series, Sounds in the Grass and Accabonac Creek.
Over fifty Pollock works are untitled, but some of those have a year in their title, while a year has been
assigned to others.
Biographies
Unlike formal biographies, this one occasionally refers to fictional or poetic works which allude to Pollock’s
real life.
However, it should be acknowledged that these fictional accounts are less reliable than authoritative
biographies and at times they are admittedly outrageous. However, the most fanciful, such as the poem
Jackson Pollock by Frank O’Hara, or the Bill Rabinovitch movie PollockSquared (2005), can get to truths
rarely touched on by facts alone.
Such fiction might, however, propose certain helpful links between known facts. This book attempts to
distinguish known facts from the fictions with each reference, while acknowledging that sometimes fiction
can be more insightful than facts alone. For the many actual biographical references consulted, a
The floor of Jackson Pollock’s studio, The Spring, East Hampton,
Long Island.1998. bibliography is presented as the first group of footnotes.
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