Jackson Pollock
dal 10/8/2000 al 8/10/2000
Segnalato da
10/8/2000
Jackson Pollock
State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
From the Collection of the Museum of Modern Art (New York, USA). It was in the lifetime of Jackson Pollock when he became a classical embodiment of the Modern Movement of the 20th century. On August 11, 1956 Pollock died in a car crash.
From the Collection of the Museum of Modern Art (New
York, USA)
It was in the lifetime of Jackson Pollock when he became a
classical embodiment of the Modern Movement of the 20th
century.
Pollock was born in 1912 in Wyoming. When he was seven his
family moved to California. In 1928 he started attending Art
School in Los Angeles. In 1930 he moved to New York. Here
he attended the studio of Thomas Hart, a typical American
realistic artist of left orientation. During this first period of his
creative life in 1930-1939 the works of Pollock reveal his
sympathy with left movements and interest in the life of
workers. They also demonstrate his attempt to render in an
expressionistic way his impressions of the Wild West. At the
same time he studied masterpieces of the old masters - there is
a series of his drawings on the subjects of the paintings by
Signorelli and El Greco, the two painters who particularly
interested Pollock.
During World War II New York became the new capital of the
world modern art: artists from the occupied Europe came here;
exhibitions devoted to modern art were held here. Pollock was
greatly impressed with the exhibitions of Picasso -"Guernica" in
1940 and a retrospective show "Picasso. Forty years.
1900-1940". European surrealism and theories of Jung were
two decisive factors that determined Pollocks creative activities
in the 1940-s. The first success also came to the artist in the
early 40-s. He participated in the exhibition "American and
French Painting" where his pictures were exhibited side by side
with works by Picasso, Matisse, Braque and Derain. In 1943
the first personal exhibition of Pollock was held. The master
absolutely refused to render in his works reality, he strived to
depict only his state. He started to use the technique that he
himself invented called "dripping" that consisting in squeezing
and spraying drops of paint right from the paint tube on to the
canvas.
The years from 1948 to 1954 were the period when the fame
of Pollock grew immensely. In the late 1940-s he participated
in the protests of the abstractionist artists against the
concervative Museum of Modern Art. He displayed his
paintings together with Willem de Kooning, Robert Maserwell,
Franz Kline and other painters known in the art history as the
members of the "New York School". One of the critics called
this group "astract expressionists" and it was this trend of
American art that first became known worldwide and
influenced European art.
In 1950 the magazine "Art News" published a series of photos
by Hans Namuth showing Jackson Pollock at work that caused
a sensation in the world. The artist was represented when he
put canvases on subframes on the floor, then sprayed paints
from the tubes on the canvas with convulsive movements. In
1950 Pollock had a great success on the Venetian Biennale. At
this time the artist painted such pictures as "Autumn Rythm", "
Lilac Mist", "Galaxy" and "White Light".
The "White Light" (1954) represented at the exhibition in the
State Hermitage was practically the last large painting of
Jackson Pollock. During the last two years of his life his hands
almost never touched the brush. On August 11, 1956 Pollock
died in a car crash.
St Petersburg Hermitage Museum