Jackson Pollock

by Steven Naifeh

  Through the fall, Jackson visited “Dr. Mark” once a week and continued to drink (alternately liquor and emulsion), while Lee visited Dr. Hubbard and prepared furiously for her show. Between Parsons’s visit in the spring and the show’s opening on October 15, Lee’s painting had suffered a curious reversal. Instead of continuing the free experiments with gestural abstraction, she had sought safety in her Hofmann school models, Mondrian and Matisse, covering large canvases with bands of color in cramped, calculated arrangements. Even Stella noticed the difference: “[Lee’s] work has changed so much,” she wrote Frank. Old friends, including Sande and Arloie, crowded into the opening and complimented her, but the show was a flop. Not a single work sold. Stuart Preston offered a mildly enthusiastic review in the Times, but earned Lee’s ire with a patronizing reference to her “feminine acuteness.”

  Jackson’s show, in late November 1951, didn’t fare much better. At some level, Jackson may have hoped to upstage Lee. He was unusually meticulous about stretching and hanging his paintings; he insisted on a catalogue—his first since coming to Parsons—and he recruited Alfonso Ossorio to write a suitably impenetrable introduction exploring the show’s dark themes:

  His painting confronts us with a visual concept organically evolved from a belief in the unity that underlies the phenomena among which we live. … An ocean’s tides and a personal nightmare, the bursting of a bubble and the communal clamor for a victim are as inextricably meshed in the coruscation and darkness of his work as they are in actuality.

  At Tony Smith’s suggestion, Jackson had persuaded Parsons to underwrite a portfolio of six prints, photographically reproduced from six paintings in the show and silk-screened in editions of twenty-five at Sande’s workshop in Essex, Connecticut. Even with the extra care, the catalogue, the handsome portfolio of prints, and the advantage of Parsons’s prime, pre-Christmas slot, however, the show fizzled. In contrast to previous years, the opening was perfunctorily attended and throughout the three-week run, visitors were rare. Although sober the first night—Stella was there—Jackson set the tone for the show when he bolted afterward for the Village. “Jesus,” Lee sighed. “We’re in for another night.” Jackson had anticipated public skepticism. (“Those black-and-whites were an easy target,” says painter Paul Jenkins. “[people could say,] ‘Only Franz Kline can do black and white, only de Kooning can do figures.’”) He even suspected that they wouldn’t sell. He was right on both counts. After the opening, he often dropped by the gallery, often drunk, and stood in dolorous solitude among the stark black-and-white images. When Charles came by, the two went to a bar near the old Eighth Street apartment. “We sat down and Jack pulled out the catalogue,” Charles remembers. “He said, ‘I want you to see this. I’m a goddamn good painter.’” The words had a strange “finality,” Charles thought. When Violet de Laszlo ventured into Parsons’s gallery, she was struck immediately by a “foreboding of death.”

  As Christmas approached, death was indeed on Jackson’s mind. More than one person had warned him about the noxious effects of the Devolac he had been using for the black paintings. “That stuff was so toxic they had to discontinue it,” recalls Alfonso Ossorio. “Even Jackson complained about it. He had to keep the windows open when he used it.” With winter approaching, he had to close the windows, but he still needed the barn—both as a place to paint and, more and more, as a place to get away from Lee, and to drink. Finally, he bought a Salamander kerosene stove, a black metal oven with a tall chimney that spit fire. It was a diabolical engine that “terrified” Lee. “A wooden barn, full of pigment and all sorts of flammable stuff, heated by one of those kerosene pot bellies,” she complained. “[It was] very frightening.”

  Even more frightening, though, was Jackson’s mood. For reasons that were unclear, the Pollock clan didn’t gather in Deep River for Thanksgiving that year, nor did they make plans for Christmas. Jackson sat at the bar at Jungle Pete’s or in the barn and waited for the “Santa shit” to pass. He cursed Jeffrey Potter for blocking off one of his favorite escape routes, an old logging road, to prevent out-of-towners from stripping the holly trees. He spent most of the holiday week drunk, at various bars, but decided to return home around eight o’clock on Friday night, December 28.

  It was a clear, moonless night, and the road was dry as Jackson pushed the Cadillac, the last remnant of his celebrity, faster and faster down the Springs-Amagansett Road. Approaching the intersection of Old Stone Highway, the big car suddenly veered to the right, into the opposite lane, then off the road into the dark triangle of brush in the middle of the intersection. The lance-like bumpers caught three mailboxes in a row and spun them into the air. Still going sixty, the car hurtled across Old Stone Highway and into the grassy void on the opposite side. Jackson, finally alert, jerked the wheel sharply to the left, back toward the Springs Road. Instantly, the left two tires lost contact while the right two plowed deeper into the frozen ground, spitting up debris as the car careened sideways back onto the pavement, then off again on the other side, where it clung to the edge of the road, bottoming hard on driveway embankments, its wheels spinning furiously in the slick grass. Nothing could stop the long, low-slung Caddy, not even a telephone pole, hit a crunching glance. Trees and bushes flew by, strange shapes in the darkness, their branches clawing at the canvas roof. Fifty feet farther down the road, it hit a tree dead on. In an instant, the broad hood accordioned, the engine punched through the dashboard, the steering wheel pinned Jackson in the chest, and the big car—“his dreamboat”—jolted to a stop.

  After a few minutes of dazed silence, Jackson climbed from the wreckage and staggered off into the darkness to search for help.

  40

  MIRACLE CURES

  On one side of the big, airy studio, Betty Parsons shifted nervously in her chair, one hand entwined around a cigarette, the other draped over a bony knee. Across the room, facing her like a firing squad, sat seven men: Clyfford Still, characteristically grave and disapproving; Mark Rothko, looking like an accountant behind thick glasses and anxious eyes; Barnett Newman, with his walrus mustache and forced laugh; Ad Reinhardt, his gentle disposition concealed by a stern gaze; Herbert Ferber and Seymour Lipton, the “dentist” sculptors; and Alfonso Ossorio, whose first show at Parsons’s gallery had just closed. Jackson was there, too, quiet and, for a change, sober, his chest still sore where it had been hit by the steering wheel.

  They had called this meeting to give Parsons one last chance. They were tired of being neglected. They were tired of being crowded out by the scores of unknown artists—many of them amateurs, most of them women—whose works Parsons insisted on showing. They were tired of her bad record-keeping, her careless policy of lending paintings, and her infuriating habit of disappearing in moments of crisis. They were tired of no catalogues, no publicity, no support, no sales, and, worst of all, no money. “They simply said to Betty, ‘Look here, you can’t go on like this,’” recalls Ossorio.

  First, they offered a carrot: if Parsons dropped all but twelve artists (the seven of them, plus five of her choosing), “they would make [her] the most famous dealer in the world.” When she balked at that, they brandished the stick: “If you don’t cut down on the frequency of shows and guarantee us some income,” they threatened, “we’ll have to leave you.”

  Parsons sat passively through the recital of grievances, her double-jointed legs—one in a flesh-colored stocking, the other in gray—winding tighter and tighter around each other, her sad eyes darting back and forth among the seven glowering figures in front of her. Finally, she looked “these powerhouses” in the eye and said, “Sorry. I have to be true to my conscience.” She told them “it was her gallery,” recalled Ossorio, “and if they didn’t like the way she ran it, they could go.” What she didn’t tell them was that many of the female artists they wanted her to drop were both close friends and financial backers. “She felt committed to these women,” according to Ossorio, “so she just twisted her legs together and said no.”


  For Jackson, it was the last straw. He had conceded the battle over mural commissions, although her “officious meddling” still rankled. He had overlooked it when she lost paintings or put off potential patrons. He could understand that Lee’s show hadn’t sold. He could understand why Ossorio’s first show, which followed Lee’s, had attracted so little attention. But the failure of the black-and-white show was more than he could forgive. Only two out of sixteen paintings had sold—virtually nothing: not the large works, not the medium-size works, not even the limited edition of signed prints for $200. She couldn’t blame the reviews; they had been uniformly supportive. In the Partisan Review, Greenberg had called the show “a newer and loftier triumph.” “If Pollock were a Frenchman,” he wrote, “people would already be calling him ‘maître’ and speculating in his pictures. Here in this country the museum directors, the collectors, and the newspaper critics will go on for a long time—out of fear if not out of incompetence—refusing to believe that we have at last produced the best painter of a whole generation.” (Greenberg had told Lee privately: “At last I see what you see. Jackson has learned to draw—like an angel.”) Even the crotchety Howard Devree, writing in the Times, had agreed that the new works “gained immeasurably” from the reintroduction of figuration, and Art Digest called them Jackson’s “most ambitious and complex [paintings] to date.”

  The critical reaction to the Arts Club show in Chicago in October had been less enthusiastic, but at least there had been a show. Unlike most artists, Jackson was being seen around the world. His paintings had been illustrated in Life and Time and Harper’s Bazaar. One had even appeared on television when Vincent Price showed it to Jack Paar on “The Tonight Show.” In April the Museum of Modern Art would give him an entire room in its “15 Americans” show. With so much publicity, why wasn’t Parsons able to sell more? Why weren’t the prices higher? Jackson wasn’t the only one asking such questions. From Chicago, Reginald Isaacs wrote to say he was “surprised to hear that the fine publicity that you have received during this last year has not increased your sales.” And Bill Davis sent a note from Spain, admiring the November show’s “magnificent” catalogue (which Parsons had resisted printing). “Let me know some prices,” he added, “… I think your prices ought to be higher than ever.”

  By the time his contract expired on the first day of 1952, Jackson was fuming. He told Parsons not only that he was leaving her gallery but that he wanted to remove his paintings from the premises immediately. Parsons was flabbergasted. She had taken him on when no one else in New York would risk it; she had spent four years developing his reputation; she had looked the other way when he took money directly from patrons like Ossorio and when he bartered paintings; she had, on occasion, forgone her own commission; and, on top of everything, she had put up with his temperament, his drinking, and his black-and-white mood swings. Barely concealing her own anger behind a steely, businesslike reserve, she fired back a response:

  Dear Jack:

  I am anxious to make clear to you what I feel concerning the removal of your work at this time from the gallery. As you know, all artists remain with me for a year after their show, so that it gives me the possibility to realize some business on their work—and do not forget, I pay your expenses. I always thought this was understood between us. However, I will understand perfectly if you wish to take your pictures out at the end of May. … As ever, Betty

  Without much choice, Jackson backed down. He agreed to leave the paintings with her until the end of the season and to “keep an open mind” about renewing his contract, “if she succeeded in doing some business.” In fact, he had no intention of renewing. Privately, he dissociated himself from Parsons completely, instructing Ossorio to omit any mention of her from the catalogue for his upcoming show in Paris. Later, Parsons would claim that she felt no resentment over Jackson’s departure, only “hurt” and “disappointment.” At the time, however, she summarily dropped Lee Krasner from the gallery. “It has nothing to do with your painting,” she told Lee. “I still respect you as an artist but it is impossible for me to look at you and not think of Jackson and it is an association that I cannot have in here.”

  Beneath the cordial compromise, Parsons, too, saw that Jackson’s decision was final. In his endless search for easy solutions, for someone (like Grant Mark) to make his problems disappear without pain or effort, Jackson had convinced himself that the reversals of the previous year had been Parsons’s fault. Reclaiming his lost celebrity was simply a matter of changing dealers. The right dealer, like the right doctor, would make everything right again.

  The right dealer—the only dealer, in Jackson’s opinion—was Pierre Matisse. “Jackson thought he deserved the best,” recalls John Little, “and Matisse was the best. All during the thirties and forties, he represented the giants: Picasso, Braque, and his father, Henri.” In 1947, when Peggy Guggenheim announced her plans to close Art of This Century and return to Europe, Jackson had visited Matisse’s gallery on Fifty-seventh Street just to sit and fantasize. By the summer of 1951, Jackson was bolder, although still not bold enough to confront Matisse directly. Instead, he asked Joe Glasco to approach Matisse’s former assistant, Catherine Viviano. “[Joe] asked Viviano if she thought Matisse would handle me,” Jackson bragged to Ossorio in June, “[and] she definitely thought he would.” She was wrong. When Jackson made a more formal approach later that year, Matisse politely declined, saying he “didn’t show Americans.” In fact, as Jackson probably knew, he did show several Americans (Loren MacIver and Theodore Roszak) and one Canadian (Jean-Paul Riopelle). What he didn’t know was that before turning Jackson down, Matisse had consulted Marcel Duchamp. “What do you think of this Jackson Pollock?” he reportedly asked. “He’s up for grabs.” When the laconic Duchamp shrugged his shoulders dismissively, that was the end of it.

  By the time Matisse said no, Jackson didn’t care any longer. He had found an even better dealer: Grant Mark.

  It hadn’t taken Mark long to appreciate that Jackson was no ordinary patient. After several trips to Ossorio’s opulent new house and several gifts of major paintings (including Lucifer and Number 7, 1950), his entrepreneurial instincts had been aroused. When Jackson told him about the discontent among Parsons’s artists and their ultimatum, he saw an opening. “Mark was a wheeler-dealer,” recalls Ossorio, “always looking for a chance to run a scam.” In January 1952, he presented his scheme to a pliant, gullible Jackson. Instead of the “confusing arrangement of dealers, museums, collectors, all withholding from the public in their private sanctuaries,” he argued, what the art world needed was someone to “put art directly before the public.” The same person could act as an “umbrella agent” for all major artists, marketing their works en masse to public institutions, especially corporations and hotels.

  That person, of course, was Mark. “He wanted all the Abstract Expressionists to sell their works through him,” recalls Ossorio. “He was going to become the mastermind of the U.S. art market.” Mark’s ambitious plan and carnival barker’s rhetoric undoubtedly reminded Jackson of Tom Benton’s populist call to arms a decade before. It also appealed to his resentment against Benton’s “precious fairies” and “museum boys,” with whom he, too, had been battling so long for acceptance. “Pollock was caught up in the idea of getting art out of the ‘arty’ circles,” recalled Barnett Newman. Acting as Mark’s “salesman,” Jackson tried to bring his fellow malcontents at Parsons into Mark’s stable. Rothko, Still, Newman, and Tomlin all attended meetings in Mark’s Park Avenue offices to hear the pitch. Of the four, only Newman expressed skepticism. “I used to be in business with my father and I know [Mark’s] type,” he said: “‘Here’s a telegram from the President,’ and he shows you the telegram (which he sent to himself), and there’s a big deal coming up but he can’t tell you about it.” At their first meeting, Newman asked impertinent questions like “Who would pay for the paintings?” and was never invited back.

  With Mark as his “agent,”
assuring him of financial success, Jackson decided he no longer needed a dealer. In February, he called Reginald Isaacs to announce that henceforth he would be “handling [his] own painting and publicity.” Knowing Jackson’s reticent, reclusive nature, Isaacs was skeptical but supportive. In return for a promise of yet another painting, he agreed to act as Jackson’s agent in Chicago. “Since we now have four of your paintings,” he wrote two days later, “we are well on our way to becoming a Chicago gallery for you. Certainly we would only be too pleased to show our Pollock paintings to anyone whom you sent to us. … We estimate that 400 people have seen [your paintings] since [they] were installed; and I think that compares favorably with a public gallery.”

  Ossorio also offered to help, although his record in marketing Jackson’s work, as opposed to buying it, had thus far been less than sterling. During his brief return to the United States at the beginning of the year—to move into The Creeks—he had arranged a meeting with a group of prominent Catholics including James Johnson Sweeney, Maurice Lavannoux, the editor of Liturgical Arts, Father Ford of Columbia University, Rosalind Constable of Time/Life, and Otto and Eloise Spaeth to present formally the chapel project for which Tony Smith had finally completed the sketches and model. The design called for a series of “suspended hexagons” in a “honeycomb” arrangement with the altar at the center. Originally, the plan included wall space for murals, but after seeing the Namuth film and the painting on glass, Smith had replaced virtually all the walls with windows on which Jackson would execute similar works. At the meeting in MacDougal Alley, the assembled dignitaries greeted Smith’s unconventional design “with practically total incomprehension,” Ossorio recalled. “They were shocked, they were tongue-tied.” They questioned both the “Christian ethos” of Jackson’s work, and their own ability to raise the money—a project for which, said Ossorio, “there was not one iota of enthusiasm.” Mortified, Tony Smith “stomped out the room.”