NEW YORK, NY.- This concentrated survey of the work of Jackson Pollock (American, 1912–1956) tracks the evolution of the artist’s work from the 1930s until his 1956 death at the age of 44. The Museum of Modern Art’s Pollock holdings are unparalleled in their breadth and quality, and Jackson Pollock: A Collection Survey, 1934–1954 is drawn entirely from the collection, featuring approximately 50 works representing every phase of the artist’s career and the wide range of materials and techniques that he employed.

Over the course of two decades, Pollock’s work progressed from mythical, primal figures and scenes; to imagery that combines elements of representation and abstraction; to the radical “drip” paintings that mark the climax of his career. With these culminating works, which envelop the viewer through their monumental scale and allover markings, Pollock emerged at the forefront of the post-World War II movement known as Abstract Expressionism. His innovations helped make this the first American art movement to wield international influence. They had an explosive effect on the traditions of painting and opened up new avenues for sculpture and performance art as well.

In addition to One: Number 31, 1950 (1950)—arguably Pollock’s greatest masterpiece and one of his largest canvases—the exhibition also features drawings and exceedingly rare and little-known engravings, lithographs, and screenprints, highlighting an underappreciated side of one of the most important and influential American artists of the 20th century. Bringing these works together underscores the relentless search for new expressive means and the emphasis on experimentation and process that were at the heart of Pollock’s creativity.

Early Work, 1934–43
In 1930, at the age of eighteen, Jackson Pollock moved from Los Angeles to New York, where he began studying with Regionalist painter Thomas Hart Benton at the Art Students League. Although he eventually reacted against Benton’s Social Realist style, the rhythmic arabesques that Pollock often used to structure his compositions owe a debt, in part, to Benton’s influence.

Between 1934 and 1943, as Pollock sought to forge his own artistic identity, he studied and assimilated the work of many other artists, from the muscular, serpentine figuration of the Old Masters El Greco and Peter Paul Rubens to the fiery, socially conscious expressionism of the Mexican muralists José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros. Viewing a large Pablo Picasso exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art in 1939 was a watershed event for Pollock, and he adopted many of Picasso’s motifs and formal devices. That same year, Pollock entered Jungian psychoanalysis to treat his alcoholism and depression. Pollock’s interest in Carl Jung’s theories about the collective unconscious as the preserve of universal myths and archetypes, together with his growing awareness of European Surrealist ideas about the power of the unconscious, encouraged the artist in his efforts to harness and project hidden thoughts and feelings through his work.

Transitional Work, 1944–47
The years from 1944 to 1947 were transitional for Pollock, as he consolidated the influences he had assimilated in his early career and entered into a period of greater confidence. In 1943, Peggy Guggenheim had given him a one-year contract and his first solo exhibition, at her New York gallery, Art of This Century, and he had started to receive some favorable attention. His relationship with painter Lee Krasner, begun in 1942, also marked a turning point, as she provided crucial support, both personal and professional. Krasner and Pollock married in 1945 and moved to a farmhouse in East Hampton, New York, away from what he later called “the wear and tear” of New York City. He started veiling the figures in his works with dense, labyrinthine networks of lines, such that his images hovered between representation and abstraction. In 1946, on the precipice of a major breakthrough, he made his first canvases that consisted solely of dripped and poured paint.

Mature Work, 1948–54
In 1947, Pollock began laying canvas on the floor of his barn studio and then pouring, dribbling, and flicking enamel paint onto the surface using sticks and stiffened brushes, or from holes punctured directly in the can. He worked on the canvases from all sides, creating rhythmic, interlacing lines of paint, punctuated by splatters and puddles. Although the finished works can look haphazard, and accident did play a part, Pollock’s process was informed by the skill and control he had gained over the previous two decades of his career.

Pollock’s groundbreaking “drip” paintings and drawings were shown at the Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, in 1948, 1949, and 1950. While the works confounded many viewers, several critics recognized an innovative force in their allover compositions that seemed to engulf the viewer in a vast environment of intense energy. Pollock’s renown quickly grew to mythic proportions in the 1950s, and he became an international symbol of the new postwar American painting. Due in part to the pressures of this fame, Pollock became critically depressed and drank heavily. After 1952, he sought to move beyond the “drip” and returned to brushing oil on canvas. But, tormented by an artistic block, he made only ten paintings between 1953 and 1956, the last year of his life.

Organized by Starr Figura, Curator, with Hillary Reder, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Drawings and Prints.