Art
1912–1956 · American
Abstract Expressionism
Jackson Pollock was the leading figure of Abstract Expressionism and the most famous exponent of "action painting". Laying huge unstretched canvases on the floor, he dripped, poured and flung paint to create dense, all-over webs of colour that helped shift the centre of the Western art world from Paris to New York.
Mural (1943)
Stanley Museum of Art, University of Iowa
His largest canvas, a 6-metre frieze of swirling black-outlined rhythmic figures commissioned by Peggy Guggenheim for her New York townhouse hall
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No. 5, 1948 (1948)
Private collection
A dense "bird's nest" of grey, brown, white and yellow drips on fibreboard; reportedly sold for $140 million in 2006
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Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist) (1950)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
A soft pinkish-grey haze of black, white and rose drips, with the artist's handprints near the top
Image: Ned Hartley · CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Autumn Rhythm (Number 30) (1950)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Vast frieze-like web of black, white and brown lines on bare beige canvas
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One: Number 31, 1950 (1950)
Museum of Modern Art, New York
One of his largest drip paintings: a vast tangle of black, white, grey and tan
Image: Ned Hartley · CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Blue Poles (Number 11, 1952) (1952)
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
A chaotic field of colour cut by eight slanting dark blue "poles"; its 1973 purchase for A$1.3 million caused political uproar
No free image available (likely still in copyright) · see it on Wikipedia