Jackson Pollock 1912-1956
"Pollock used paint and canvas in a new way… This use is one of the most important aspects of Pollock’s work, as important as scale and wholeness."—Donald Judd
Jackson Pollock was an Abstract Expressionist painter and defining figure of postwar American art. His paintings rank among the most recognizable emblems of the 20th century, employing innovative techniques that continue to inspire cultural discourse today. In just under three decades, Pollock revolutionized the modes of art making for generations to come.
Olney Gleason is the exclusive worldwide representative of the work of Jackson Pollock via the Pollock-Krasner Foundation.
Best known for the drip painting technique he innovated in the late 1940s, Pollock's work rerouted the trajectory of art history. Often covering the entirety of the canvas with house paint dripped and splattered from all angles, Pollock achieved international renown for his powerful abstractions that traced poured lines of paint, disregarding conventions of composition. In recent years, his early and late figurative works have received renewed critical attention, revealing a constant interplay between abstraction and figuration in his paintings. As Pollock once said, "I choose to veil the imagery."
Pollock drew from his varied interests, ranging from Picasso and the European avant-garde to Mexican muralism, Indigenous symbolism, Jungian psychoanalysis, and jazz. He gravitated toward Surrealist automatism early in his career, a hallmark of his sketchbook drawings including those created while undergoing psychoanalysis. Echoing the formal developments of his canvas paintings, Pollock's works on paper capture key innovations throughout his career.
Among the first Americans to be considered on the same tier as the European modern masters, Pollock paved the way for wider institutional recognition for his Abstract Expressionist contemporaries and his legacy stretches the globe. The work and writing of the next generation of artists, including Allan Kaprow, Donald Judd, the Gutai group in Japan cemented his wider influence and placed him amid the most influential artists of the 20th century.
Born in Wyoming and raised in Arizona and California, Pollock arrived in New York in 1930 and studied with muralist Thomas Hart Benton at the Art Students League before working for the WPA Federal Arts Project and in David Alfaro Siqueiros' workshop over the next decade. In 1945, two years after his first solo exhibition, Pollock married artist Lee Krasner and moved to Springs, NY, where he made many of his landmark paintings on the floor of his barn studio. With crucial support from Krasner, gallerist and collector Peggy Guggenheim, influential critic Clement Greenberg, and others, Pollock's international recognition would rise to an unprecedented height for an American artist by the 1950s, despite his struggle with alcoholism. After Pollock's unexpected death in 1956, Krasner would continue to champion his art, facilitating major exhibitions and acquisitions of his work.
Museum exhibitions & collections
In his lifetime, Pollock was the subject of solo exhibitions at Art of This Century, New York; Arts Club of Chicago; Betty Parsons Gallery, New York; Sidney Janis Gallery, New York and Museo Correr, Venice, among other venues. He participated in influential group exhibitions including the Venice Biennale (1948, 1950, 1956) and the historic Ninth Street Show (1951). Following his death, solo exhibitions of his work have been staged at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1956, 1967, 1968, 1998, 2015-16), IV Bienal de São Paulo (1957, circulated by MoMA International Council through 1959), Moderna Museet, Stockholm (1963), Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1982); Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1997-98), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2005-06, 2020), National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (2012), Tate Liverpool (2015), Kunstmuseum Basel (2016) and Musée National Picasso-Paris (2024-25), among many other museums.
Pollock's work is represented in world-renowned collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Art Institute of Chicago; Dallas Museum of Art; Glenstone, Potomac, MD; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; Stanley Museum of Art, Iowa City, IA; Artizon Museum, Tokyo, Japan; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Fondation Beyeler, Basel; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; National Gallery of Art, Canberra, Australia; Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; Tate, London, and many others.