Skip to content

b. 1912, Cody, Wyoming
d. 1956, Springs, New York

Jackson Pollock was an American painter and major figure in the Abstract Expressionist movement. A champion of direct engagement with material, Pollock introduced a new method of gestural abstraction that elevated him to international fame. Born to a farming family in Wyoming, Pollock was the youngest of five sons and grew up between Arizona and California. Though his family had limited resources, Pollock’s mother fostered his creativity and enrolled him at the Manual Arts High School in LA in 1927. In 1930, Pollock moved to Manhattan and enrolled in the Art Students League alongside his brother.

In New York, Pollock initially studied under American scene painter Thomas Hart Benton, who staunchly opposed European modernism. While working for the WPA Federal Art Project between 1938 and 1942, Pollock underwent Jungian psychotherapy sessions to combat his alcoholism. Pollock’s psychotherapist engaged with him through his art, resulting in the appearance of many Jungian concepts in his paintings and, subsequently, shifting from figurative work towards abstraction in the early 1940s. In 1943, Peggy Guggenheim held Pollock’s first solo show at her gallery, Art of the Century, in New York. After the exhibition, he sold his first painting to the MoMA. In 1945, Pollock married American painter Lee Krasner, who became an important influence on his career and legacy.

Originally introduced to liquid paints in an experimental workshop led by Mexican muralist David Siqueiros in 1936, Pollock began to pour this paint over his canvases in the early 1940s. After moving to Long Island in 1945, he developed this technique further, using hardened brushes, sticks, and basting syringes to apply synthetic resin-based paints. Pollock’s most famous paintings were made using this technique between 1947 and 1950, a time known as his “drip period.” Through this innovative method, Pollock became one of the originators of action painting and challenged Western tradition by using his whole body to create paintings.

After rocketing to fame in 1951, Pollock abruptly abandoned the drip style, shifting his work towards darker colors and eventually returned to bright colors and figurative elements. In 1956, Pollock died in a car crash on Long Island. After his death, Krasner did much to further his legacy as the founder of Abstract Expressionism and donated many of his works to the MoMA’s collection. Today, his work can be found in public collections including The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the SFMOMA, San Francisco; The Tate Modern, London; Guggenheim Museum, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and The Museum of Modern Art, New Yor