Talk:Jackson Pollock

Influence
From research I've done, I've read in many sources that Pollack's unique style was influenced by the artist Max Ernst. However, I see no mention of Ernst in this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.187.21.115 (talk) 07:27, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * During the 1930s he worked in the manner of the Regionalists, being influenced also by the Mexican muralist painters Orozco, Rivera, Siqueiros as well as the German painter Max Ernst.Barrymartin2 (talk) 12:12, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

More on the Biography
"in an alcohol-related, single car crash " -this is a bit euphemistic, isn't it? Why not say that he was drunk at the wheel? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.181.46.66 (talk) 09:32, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

because it's more specific.

I think the Charlie Rose interview about Pollock should be linked to this Article somehow because it goes into the end of his life in depth and detail, and includes a letter from the brother of Edith Metzger stating that Pollock murdered his sister and the protest against showing his work ( glorifying Pollock ) at the MoMA at the end of the 20th Century.

The last 20 minutes of the film, and the director's commentary on the DVD also go into detail about the decline and death of Pollock. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.43.18.19 (talk) 04:18, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Wikiprojects
I feel that the wikiprojects:
 * Wyoming,
 * new york
 * arizona

are a bit excessive, i have removed them nishantjr (talk) 13:36, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

No information on his depression
This is solely an account of his technique, there is no connection to his life and how it influenced his artwork. He suffered from depression and from alcoholism and those are major biographical items that cannot be omitted. A correction should be made. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.55.213.30 (talk) 11:39, 2 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Agree. WP lists him as having suffered from clinical depression. Sounds to me like an important fact about his life, and one whose influence on his life and work may be documented and discussed in some reliable source. David Spector (talk) 22:54, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

John Squire or The Stone Roses inspired by Jackson Pollock?
There is no doubt that most of the artwork for The Stone Roses, which is done by their lead guitarist, John Squire, was inspired by the works of Jackson Pollock. Just look at their legendary The Stone Roses (album) artwork- The Stone Roses- (Bye Bye Badman- is what the artwork is called), it is without question that it draws influence from Pollock and his works. So why is there no mention of it, at least in the popular culture section?

(http://www.john-squire.com/art/byebye_orig.jpg) - The piece from their debut. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.99.100.112 (talk) 17:18, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Not to mention the lyrics to "Going Down" ("Yeah she looks like a painting/Jackson Pollock's Number Five"). He's also quite forthcomming about his influences. "Apart from untitled, I made the album covers on canvasses that are roughly four times the size of a vinyl album. They were straight rip-offs of Jackson Pollocks done in that style." Dendlai (talk) 20:33, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Prominent Antiamericanist?
Is Eva Cockcroft prominent or even most prominent or really only completely unknown? She still might be right of course.--Radh (talk) 17:08, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Tate Modern holdings
I notice the Tate website lists 6 Pollocks in its collection: These ones look worth listing as major works:


 * 1938/40 Naked Man with Knife
 * ~1941 Birth
 * 1948 Number 23
 * 1948 Summertime Number 9A

Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:31, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Discussion of high prices
There's very little discussion of the extraordinarily high sale price of Pollack's paintings. I know very little about art and read the article in large part because I'd like to know why someone would pay such vast amounts for these works. For instance, the article mentions a painting bought in 2006 which may or may not be a Pollack. Depending on authorship, its value may skyrocket. Why is this? From my naive point of view, the art should stand on its own and have intrinsic worth only. I'd love it if the article included an intelligent discussion (sourced, of course, not just random speculation) that could explain why this is not so. The price seems to have greatly increased over the last few decades as well, from the sale price and more modern estimates for Blue Poles. Is there a reason?

There was a sort of discussion on this issue in one of the archives, but it was basically someone saying "his paintings suck / are way overvalued" and others agreeing or disagreeing. This post is instead meant to suggest an improvement to an article about which I know little.

[For full disclosure, since it's relevant to my good faith, I find the paintings of Pollack's that I've seen to be quite interesting, but not worth anything close to what they're valued at. The ultra rich apparently need hobbies like everyone else.] 67.158.43.41 (talk) 00:05, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * This would be a good question for posting to the Humanities reference desk. Bus stop (talk) 20:23, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Norman Rockwell Connoisseur, an art lesson in disguise
Is an in-joke. Rockwell is the uptight viewer, plus by painting the Pollock painting inside his graphic illustrative painting, he's saying, "you're not special, anyone can do that." AT THE TIME (and even a little bit today), traditional artists hated abstractionists for painting like children and not taking the time to learn to draw properly. (Now we know that Pollock was disturbed and expressing his emotion in he only way he knew how, like an animal, as stated in the movie, "I am Nature.") In the late 20th century, Fantasy painters such as Boris and Frazetta also railed against and lampooned (Connoisseur is a lampoon)"modern art" with Boris stating in his book, Fantasy Art Techniques, that "...modern art had crawled up it's own ass." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.43.18.19 (talk) 04:11, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Signature
What's the deal with removing the signature? They're found in many articles and it adds a nice touch to the Infobox. Thanks  J e n o v a  20 18:15, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * This issue has been argued, discussed for years and it was decided by consensus that we don't include signatures of artists in the visual arts articles for a variety of reasons. There is no line in the infobox for a signature - that is not a coincidence - that was a decision made by the visual arts project several years ago. While other projects use them we don't in the visual arts...Modernist (talk) 18:20, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * There is an infobox for people with that line. I can't say i understand why they decided against signatures, especially for dead artists where they can't be abused...  J e n o v a  20 18:26, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Copyright violations, forgeries, and a host of other issues as well as visual distraction were a few problems. Here is a link to one of those conversations that we had several years ago Template talk:Infobox artist...Modernist (talk) 18:31, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * There's no copyright on a dead person's signature?
 * Seems stupid, i'll take your word for it though and leave it in this instance. Thanks for telling me  J e n o v a  20 18:43, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Fractals or no Fractals?
According to this article Taylor' s method is insufficient to show that Pollock had such an intuition of the nature of chaotic motion and his paintings may not be fractals at all. I think this should be added to the article. I m going to add it if there isn't any disagreement.-- NNeilAlieNN  Talk to me  20:53, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

An Open University BBC show called "The Code", episode 2 - Shapes presented by Oxford Unversity Mathmatics Professor Marcus du Sautoy shows that Pollock had literally stumbled across a Universal Law of self similarity, later expressed by Mandelbrot (so called in popular media as "God's Fingerprint" or more formally as Mandelbrot's Set). His Chaotic Motion did indeed express fractal self similarity of different scales that is expressed everywhere in nature and that this was the key to it's appeal. Geometry that matches nature compells us. Nature's geometric beauty lies behind the Mona Lisa, for example as Humans express self similarity similar to the Earth (75% Ocean vs 75% water in humans, or that the nerves and blood vessels are identical to trees and river courses... etc.)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01320wn — Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.247.84.102 (talk) 15:10, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

The idea of fractal geometry is that you cannot get an idea of the size of an object no matter how much you zoom or expand on its image. Very turbulent flows are like this, say Re of 10000. Viscous flows are not since zooming in shows the flow becoming smoother. I wonder if the sheet of newspaper in the bottom of a bird;s cage and covered with specky droppings would also be a fractal image. Pollock's paintings have been compared to this.203.221.157.18 (talk) 12:45, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

CIA connection
I didn't see anything in he article about that - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.223.78.189 (talk) 17:10, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Interesting, but that "long leash" probably precludes any direct mention here. How do we get a reliable source? --Pete (talk) 20:50, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Surrealist influence
Following a revert by Coldcreation with regards to a text about the influence of Wolfgang Paalen posted by Andreasneufert: According to Pepe Karmel, Jackson Pollock: Interviews, Articles, and Reviews, The Museum of Modern Art, 1999, though the Surrealist technique of Coulage (pouring) had been practiced by Onslow-Ford and Wolfgang Paalen in 1938-39 in Paris, Pollock had never seen these pictures. And that, despite the presence of Onslow-Ford in New York for a short time during the 1940s. Pollock likely never knew of their existence. "They are simply of historical interest as a step in modern painting's liberation from what the Surrealists called the tyranny of the brush." Very different results were obtained by Paalen in his Coulage works, producing a fusion of colored inks (more in the style of Paul Jenkins than Pollock. Though Jenkins had never seen these Coulage works either). See above source. Coldcreation (talk) 18:40, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

As far as the lengthy text on the "action" involved in Paalen's article on Totem Art of the indigenous people of British Columbia: The term "action painting" was coined by the American critic Harold Rosenberg in 1952, not Pollock under the influence of Paalen's text (which he or Rosenberg had likely never read). Coldcreation (talk) 19:29, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

And about Fumage: The technique(s) employed by Pollock bare no resemblance to the technique of fumage. Coldcreation (talk) 19:39, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Critc Robert Coates nickname
There is a reference for Robert Coates providing Pollock the nickname "art pour l'art". I will source it, as soon as I find it. Please do not change this edit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.41.122.130 (talk) 14:42, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Wikilinks to 'surname' and 'nee'
To respond properly to your revert here, and the edit summary ("‪Hyperlinked initial references to née and surname. Wikipedia has a page devoted to each term. Consequently, each hyperlink should NOT be removed - keep it, and tell the neophyte revisionist to chill out!‬"):

A word having a Wikipedia article about it is not adequate qualification for a wikilink. That could be said of a huge portion of the words in any Wikipedia article. In general, if a word is in the dictionary, and is not used in any special sense in the article, a wikilink is unnecessary and contributes to what WP:OVERLINK calls a "sea of blue". From Manual_of_Style/Linking: "What generally should not be linked", I quote "everyday words understood by most readers in context".

There are exceptions, of course. I would support your edit on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert here, as 'iteration' is not a common or well understood word, and the definition in my dictionary does not shed much light on its meaning in the article. I would also support your edit on Hagar here, because the Wikipedia article provides a deeper understanding of the word in context, which you would never get from the general definitions in a dictionary. And I don't challenge your | link to 'reclusive' in this article.

In contrast, 'surname' and 'nee' are common English words, in my opinion, and for readers that don't know those words, any dictionary should suffice to set them straight. I don't see the words being used in a way peculiar to this particular article. If you would still argue that the edit is an improvement, please challenge my reasoning above, because "Wikipedia has a page devoted to each term" is a non-starter.

As for "‪tell the neophyte revisionist to chill out!‬", please assure me that this is just your style, and the response was not provoked by anything I did. I would be devastated to learn that you mistook my reversion as a personal affront. Willondon (talk) 03:35, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

there is and so far there is not. it all depends on the nothingness of it all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.61.10.131 (talk) 17:56, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Authenticity Issues
A painting that is "15 by 281 1/2 in" would be a foot and a quarter high by over 23 feet wide. That seems very unlikely. the cited source, a Vanity Fair article, does say that. I will try to find better information, but of course I will not change anything until i do. Dgndenver (talk) 00:07, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

List of major works

 * I ran across information on a painting referred to as Free Form (1946) but it is not included in the section. Is this an over-sight or is there a reason?

Fractal Expressionism

 * In the third sentence there are ten references. I am sure these are sources for the 10 scientific groups but this would be presented better if there was one footnote with the 10 listed there. Otr500 (talk) 14:27, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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Full name
Hey there Thanks for the warning, I hadn't realized how many times I had reverted you. To me, it seems that this article should follow the standards of all other Wikipedia articles and include the subject's full name at the top. What are your thoughts? --Hameltion (talk, contribs) 23:49, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
 * In art history it is the "drip paintings" that are associated with Jackson Pollock. This may be the biography of the artist but the name most commonly associated with the "drip paintings" are Jackson Pollock or even just "Pollock". Placement of the full name "Paul Jackson Pollock" in the "Early life (1912–1936)" section is appropriate for clarity. In my reasoning the paintings are of primary importance. They are not so much known by their titles such as Blue Poles, Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), or No. 5, 1948. The name "Paul Jackson Pollock" is least associated with the paintings. Bus stop (talk) 00:16, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
 * The article is fine now; best leave it alone...Modernist (talk) 03:07, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
 * The Wikipedia article about a person is a biography. While articles on individual paintings would obviously just write "Jackson Pollock", omitting "Paul", a biography of the person, by Wikipedia guidelines, includes the full name of the subject at the very start of the article. The relevant section of the Manual of Style is WP:BIRTHNAME, which reads, "While the article title should generally be the name by which the subject is most commonly known, the subject's full name, if known, should be given in the lead sentence". -> "Paul Jackson Pollock" should be at the very start, and there's also no need to write "professionally known as" or such since it's clear that his given name was disused. --Hameltion (talk, contribs) 21:39, 13 February 2018 (UTC)


 * To be clear you are talking about a guideline. There is a big difference between policy and a guideline. Bus stop's comments below are correct and the article is ok as is...Modernist (talk) 23:06, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I would say an exception should be made in a biography of Jackson Pollock and perhaps exceptions should be made in other instances as well. Concerning art history it is familiarity with widely acknowledged inflection points in the history of art, that matters. That the artist's name is "Paul" is a minor point. A lead is a summary of an article's most important contents. I think the "Early life" section is an appropriate place to mention the name at birth. In that spirit, the very first sentence of the body of the article presently reads "Paul Jackson Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming, in 1912, the youngest of five sons," and I feel that is appropriate to the subject matter of this article. I also agree that there is no need to use a term such as "professionally known as". And I am aware this is a biography and distinct from an article on an individual painting. Even though it is a biography the aim is art education, in my opinion. In an article such as this, in my opinion, we should always be mindful of the place of the paintings in art history. It is common practice in talking about art to refer to "Pollock" or "Jackson Pollock" but rarely if ever to "Paul Jackson Pollock". Bus stop (talk) 22:44, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I now understand. I will join the consensus that there is an exception for this page. Keeping the full name in the infobox is also in order. Thanks! Hameltion (talk, contribs) 00:27, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

Tenets of modernism
''Krasner's extensive knowledge and training in modern art and techniques helped her bring Pollock up to date with what contemporary art should be. Krasner was often considered to teach her husband in the dominant tenets of modernistic painting.''
 * This needs fleshing out. The more important ‘tenets’ ought to be explained. Valetude (talk) 19:34, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Bad sentence
The sentence beginning "There are several accounts where Krasner intended to use her own intuition..." is terrible. It's barely English. Frankly, I'm not sure how to rewrite it, but someone who cares about this Wikipedia article should rewrite it.Redound (talk) 00:45, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 05:52, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
 * The-she-wolf.jpg

Different Image?
It's not his best-known look. It's him at around 16 which is a bit odd of a choice considering he grew well into adulthood. UlyssesYYZ (talk) 10:41, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, ridiculous choice to use a teenage picture. Replacing it with adult passport picture. As he died nearly 70 years ago, shouldn't most photos of him be "free" by now? 193.159.102.88 (talk) 17:35, 30 June 2024 (UTC)