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A Profile of Jackson Pollock - Abstract Artist

Jackson Pollock - nicknamed Jack the Dripper - was a painter who revolutionized abstract art. He is well-known for his unique drip and splash style, and also for the initiation of the all-over painting style.

Paul Jackson Pollock was born as the youngest child of LeRoy McCoy Pollock and Stella McClure Pollock, in 1912. Four elder brothers made up the rest of his family. Though born in Cody, Wyoming; Pollock was brought up in California and Arizona. After a period of study at the Manual Arts High School located in Los Angeles, Pollock joined his brother Charles to study at the Art Students League with him under American muralist and painter Thomas Hart Benton. Benton had a lasting influence on the abstract art output of Pollock. The art techniques of David Alfaro Siquieros, Jos Clemente Orozco - a Mexican muralist and El Greco a Spanish painter, also greatly influenced Pollock.

Between 1935 and 1942, Pollock was involved in the Federal Art Project. The late 1930s saw him seeking help for alcoholic depression. Pollocks companionship with a rich New York heiress by the name of Peggy Guggenheim helped him earn public recognition. In fact, it was Peggy who gave Pollock his first ever solo exhibition in 1943 at the Art of This Century Gallery in New York.

In the early 1940s, Pollock contributed paintings for display at several abstract art and Surrealist exhibitions including Abstract and Surrealist Art, Surrealist Art, Insane and Natural.

Halfway though the 1940s, Pollock was painting in an absolutely abstract art style. In 1947 emerged the drip and splash style. The origin for the phrase action painting is believed to have originated partly from this unique style of Pollocks. Pollock didnt go for the traditional easel and preferred instead to drip and pour paint from a can onto a canvas fixed on the wall or floor. In Pollocks own words, he preferred sticks, trowels, knives and dripping fluid paint or a heavy impasto with sand, broken glass or other foreign matter added. The All-over painting style was introduced by Pollock, which departs from the conventional concept of composition with respect to the relations amid the parts.

In 1945 Pollock married Lee Krasner, an influential painter of the Abstract Expressionism Movement. The month after their wedding the couple moved to the wood-frame house - known now as the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center - where they resided till their deaths. The down payment for this house was lent to Pollock by Guggenheim. Pollocks drip period (1947-1950) was followed by paintings of a darker colour. However, Pollock soon returned to colour and reintroduced figurative aspects in his absract art. The pressure caused by a great demand for his new paintings made Pollock start drinking again after some years of abstention.

Pollock started numbering his abstract art paintings instead of naming them with the intention of ending the viewers hunt for representational interpration of his works. In 1955 Pollock ceaseed to paint and his marriage was on the rocks. An alcohol connected car crash in 1956, very near to Pollocks home, caused his death at the age of 44.

Some contemporary abstract art artists today are influenced by the work of Abstract Expressionism Movement artists such as Pollok and is commonly used by modern interior design companies such as such as Interior Designers Swansea.

About the Author: George Baxter is a retired art teacher with over 25 years experiance who takes great interest in art history.