Jackson Pollock

by Steven Naifeh

  Stella never bearing another child: ABP, recalling SMP. Roy going hunting; called “Jack”: FLP. Roy leaving Cody: “Mrs. L. R. Pollock and five sons expect to leave in about two weeks for San Diego, California, where they would make their home. Mr. Pollock went out to San Diego about a month ago, where he is now at work at his trade. He has purchased a lot in the city and expects to build in a short time”; Park County Enterprise, Nov. 16, 1912. This was typical of the newspaper stories fabricated by Stella to enhance her image in a community she was joining or leaving. Trip to Tingley: CCP; MJP. Met by sleigh: MJP. “For Sale”: Park County Enterprise, Nov. 1912, q. in Steve Cotherman, “Ten Months in Cody,” p. 8.

  National City a fruit-growing town: Solomon, p. 22. Leaving Cody on November 28, 1912: SMP to CCP and SWP, Feb. 6, 1958: “Jackson was born 28–1912. He wasnt a year old when we went to San Diego. Dad and all you kids had the mump & measles in Jan we went to Phoenix in August Frank went with Mrs edelman as her husband was in Phoenix they went Aug 9th Franks birthday six year old and the rest of the family the next week I don’t remember the year he went to New York. we left Cody on Thanksgiving day 1912.” Trip to National City; across Puget Sound; Stella not breastfeeding in public; veil: CCP.

  Roy unable to find work: CCP; FLP; MJP. Plasterer; farm worker: MJP. Staying with Mrs. Edelmann: FLP; SMP to CCP and SWP, Feb. 6, 1958. Sixth Street: Solomon, p. 22. Jackson the most beautiful baby: Margaret Louise Archbold. Mother’s face: FLP. Mother’s mouth: ACM. Epidemic: SMP to CCP and SWP, Feb. 6, 1958; CCP.

  Iowa farmers going to California: McWilliams, pp. 162–64. Roy dreaming of farm: FLP; MJP. Only scraps remaining; freeze: FLP. “Fruit Cost $34,000,000,” NYT, Jan. 13, 1913: The fruit growers alone lost $19,169,880 as “the result of the recent cold wave.” Leonard Porter; contact with Porter; distant relative: FLP. Porter: They were related through Roy’s maternal grandmother, Elizabeth McClelland. Porter moving to Phoenix: Charles Porter. Roy visiting Phoenix: CCP; FLP. Frank sent ahead; family following: SMP to CCP and SWP, Feb. 6, 1958. Plot of land: Warranty deed, Maricopa Country, Ariz., Sept. 15, 1913. Excluding the streets that bounded the plot, it was closer to eighteen acres. Distance from town: Solomon (p. 27) incorrectly states the size of the plot as forty acres. Rooming house: FLP. Arriving at house: CCP.

  4. SENSITIVE TO AN UNNATURAL DEGREE

  SOURCES

  The chapters on the Phoenix years could not have been written without the help of Arloie Conaway McCoy’s (Loie Conaway’s) unpublished children’s story, “The High Steps and the Low Steps,” which she lovingly assembled during the late 1930s from Sande’s stories about his youth in Arizona. Some fictional elements were added by Arloie—for example, a young girl named Rosemary who comes to live with the Pollock family—but for the most part the stories are careful retellings of Sande’s memories of actual events, and we have verified with Arloie the stories that we extracted from her manuscript for use in these chapters. We have also verified the material in the chapters with Charles, Frank, and Jay Pollock.

  Some of the names in “The High Steps and the Low Steps” were taken directly from the Pollock family: Sande, for example, remains Sande, and the dog Gyp remains Gyp. Some of the names are only slightly changed: the Moris, for example, became the Moros and the Pollocks became the McKays—a slight variation on the original family name McCoy. However, some name changes are more significant: Charles becomes Michael and Jackson becomes Peter; Jay and Frank have been collapsed into a single character named Tom. For clarity, we have substituted the real names for the fictitious ones in all quotations from Arloie’s manuscript.

  Books, articles, manuscripts, documents, and transcript

  Barr, Jr., Matisse; Diamonstein, The Art World; Friedman, JP; Golding, Cubism; Johnson, Jr., Phoenix; Metropolitan Museum of Art, Monet’s Years at Giverny; FVOC, JP; OC&T, JP; Solomon, JP.

  “Charles Pollock in Conversation with Terence Maloon, Peter Rippon, and Sylvia Pollock,” Artscribe, Sept. 1977; Axel Horn, “JP: The Hollow and the Bump,” Carlton Miscellany, Summer 1966; William Rubin, “JP and the Modern Tradition, Part I: 1. The Myths and the Paintings,” Artforum, Feb. 1967; William Rubin, “Pollock as Jungian illustrator: The Limits of Psychological Criticism, Part I,” Art in America, Nov. 1979; Charles Stuckey, “Another Side of JP,” Art in America, Nov.–Dec. 1977.

  Des Moines Register, Jan. 14, 1957.

  Donnelly Lee Casto, “JP: A Biographical Study of the Man and a Critical Evaluation of His Work” (M.A. thesis), Tempe: Arizona State University, 1964; FVOC, “The Genesis of JP: 1912 to 1943” (Ph.D. thesis), Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1965.

  Maricopa County, Ariz., warranty deed, Sept. 15, 1913.

  SLM, int. by Kathleen Shorthall for Life, 1959, Time/Life Archives.

  Interviews

  Paul Brach; Peter Busa; Jeremy Capillé; Nicholas Carone; Donnelly Lee Casto; Irene Crippen; Karen Del Pillar; Sylvia Fink; Dorothy Hitt; Edward Hults; Sam Hunter; Reuben Kadish; Ruth Kligman; Joe LeSueur; Donald McClure; ACM; Evelyn Minsch McGinn; Shizuko Mori Kato; Akinabu Mori; CCP; CCP (int. by SWP); EFP; FLP; Jonathan Pollock; MLP; MJP; SWP; Charles Porter; Ellen Schreck Rifley; Nene Schardt; Araks Tolegian; Evelyn Porter Trowbridge; Lee Vrooman; Samuel Wagstaff.

  NOTES

  “Shrieks of laughter”; “Chamber of Horrors”: L. Merrick, “Chamber of Horrors,” Art News, Mar. 1, 1913, in Diamonstein, p. 25. Picasso: Golding, p. 122. Matisse: Barr, Jr., p. 160. The critic was Marcel Sembat. “I tend”: Q. in Barr, Jr., p. 160. Monet: Metropolitan Museum of Art, p. 32. New home: Warranty deed, Maricopa County, Ariz., Sept. 15, 1913. Jackson seeing with retina: Brach: “When Matta returned to the U.S. in the mid-1950s, he put down the new American painting as being ‘merely retinal.’” “To an unnatural degree”: SLM, int. by Shorthall, 1959.

  Bookcase: FLP. Grass rug: Conaway, p. 30. Falling asleep: Conaway, p. 90. Retreat from midday sun: Conaway, pp. 29–30. Dad reading; Mother clipping: FLP. Stella never touching books: MJP. Crochet basket: Del Pillar; FLP. Doilies: FLP. Pillowcases: Jonathan Pollock. Rugs; curtains; bedroom; sleeping arrangements: FLP. Sleeping nude: FLP; MJP. Teddy bear; “For some time”: Conaway, p. 87. Lace: MJP. Pants and shirts: FLP. Socks and jeans: Conaway, p. 42. “They’ll never stay”: Q. in Conaway, p. 42. Everything made by Stella: ACM.

  Umbrella trees and blackbirds: FLP. Sparse grass: Conaway, p. 47. Dinner on hot nights: Conaway, p. 123. Sleeping in yard: MJP; Conaway, p. 123. Protection from mosquitoes; “It’d be so hot”: Mori. Cottonwood trees: Johnson, Jr., p. 29. Waiting for mailman: Conaway, p. 33. Stove: FLP. Not allowed near stove: CCP. Kettle: CCP. Stella washing clothes: FLP. Bathing: CCP. Christmas candy; walnuts; popcorn; “from corner to corner”; flypaper: FLP. Cellarway: Conaway, p. 62. Crocks of buttermilk; butter jar; apple barrel: Conaway, p. 64. Sweet milk: Conaway, p. 63. Skimming cream: FLP.

  Standing at screen door: FLP. Stella priming pump; flume and trellis: FLP. Outhouse: CCP. Can of lye: FLP. Brothers urinating: MJP. Jackson urinating from seated position: LeSueur and Wagstaff, recalling Kligman. Description of barnyard: Photos in possession of AAA. Patchwork drinking milk: Conaway, p. 45.

  Description of Gyp: FLP. Gyp’s pedigree: Conaway, p. 9. “Great companion”; “member of the family”: FLP. Collecting eggs; horses: CCP. “Getting too familiar”: FLP. Hogs: Conaway, p. 52. Cows: CCP says eight. FLP says twelve. Milking cows: Conaway, pp. 104, 106. “Softened”: Conaway, p. 106. Hayloft: Conaway, p. 45. Jackson fork: FLP.

  Size of farm: Mori; FLP; warranty deed, Maricopa County, Ariz., Sept. 15, 1913. Low embankment: Conaway, p. 46. Adobe house: CCP. Surrounding mountains: Porter. Irrigation ditch: Porter; Conaway, p. 46. Water: FLP. Zanjero: FLP. “How many feet”: Q. by FLP. Swimming in canal: Conaway, p. 47. Receding puddles: Rifley. Green “borders”: FLP; Conaway, p. 47. Watermelon: CCP. Strawberries: Porter. Tomatoes: FLP. Cucumbers; cantaloupes; corn: CCP. Sweet potatoes, yams, okra; Phoenix farmers’ market; alfalfa: FLP.

  Sand, rocks, and sagebrush: Conaway, p. 4. Gravel
banks: Conaway, p. 17. Gully: Conaway, p. 20. “Bare, rain-washed earth”: Conaway, p. 17. Wooden bridge: Conaway, p. 18. “Here and there”: Conaway, p. 17. Arroyo: Conaway, p. 4. Cacti; stillness: Conaway, p. 20. “Mother wouldn’t like it”: Q. in Conaway, p. 16. “Stay on the road”: Q. in Conaway, p. 18. “If the brush rustled”: Conaway, p. 20. Location of sanitarium: Conaway, p. 3: A little more than two miles from the Pollock farm. Description of sanitarium: FLP. Unnatural quiet: Conaway, p. 7. Jackson never saw sanitarium; “sick people”: Conaway, p. 18.

  Location of Porter farm: FLP; Porter. Sharecroppers: Trowbridge. “Lower class”: Rifley. Friendly: MJP. Summer Sundays: Porter. Description of Schreck farm: Rifley. Description of Minsches: McGinn. Mr. Wyncoop; “retired prospector”: FLP. Wyncoop owning Porter farm: Trowbridge. Inventions: CCP. Location of Mori farm; Yoshiro Mori a houseboy: Mori: “For a while, my father was a very successful farmer. He was kind of a hustler, I guess. He was the first Japanese to buy a truck and the first to buy land in Phoenix, Arizona. He died at the age of forty-four [in 1921] and my mother remarried.” Santa Cruz: Kato. Ayame Hamasaki: Mori. Kumamoto; arriving in 1913: Kato. Local missionary: Mori: The missionary was named Thornton. Description of Mori house: FLP. Mori’s truck: Photo in possession of Mori. Making bread: Kato. White dress: Photo in possession of Mori. Japanese food; Japanese newspaper: Kato. Calligraphy: Message on back of postcard in possession of Mori.

  Never attending church: MJP: “When we were in Cody, I remember going to church a couple of times with my Father and Mother. But when we lived on the ranch, we never went to church so far as I know. And when we moved to Phoenix, we never went to church.” Although Roy was an agnostic, Frank recalls that he permitted his wife to hang a portrait of Christ on a wall in their Phoenix home.

  “Hayride picnic”: CCP. The Hohokam: Johnson, Jr., p. 18: The actual dates were 300 B.C., when the Hohokam migrated from present-day Mexico, to A.D. 1100, when the civilization reached its peak. The population of its network of cities is estimated at 50,000 to 100,000. Without beasts of burden, the Hohokam built adobe homes that may have been several stories high and, using sharp rock axes, dug miles of canals to water their productive fields. The Hohokam art forms included pottery figures of humans and animals. “The most complex”; Salt River valley: Johnson, Jr., p. 18. Accompanying Roy to Phoenix: CCP; FLP. Restaurant: FLP. Walking along tracks; “IWW”: CCP. The Wobblies, members of the IWW (International Workers of the World), were active in Phoenix during the years that the Pollocks lived there. Especially after World War I, the Phoenix local secretariat tried to unify all workers into a single large union, recruiting heavily from discharged soldiers and sailors; Johnson, Jr., pp. 87–88. Roy explaining labor movement: FLP; MJP.

  Visitors: Conaway, p. 60. Only 646 cars: Johnson, Jr., p. 89. Waiting for mailman; “I think”: Q. in Conaway, p. 34. Selling melons to Indians: FLP. Apache wars: Johnson, Jr., p. 49: During the 1890s, the citizens of Phoenix organized a group called the Phoenix Guards to “do battle with Apache marauders.” Only when the boundaries of the Papago reservation were adjusted did the troubles with the Apaches end. Seeing peaceful Indians: CCP. Old buggy: Conaway, p. 5. Brown Jim: Conaway, p. 48. Going to Goldwater’s: FLP. Description of Goldwater’s: Johnson, Jr., p. 71. Blacksmith; Pancho Villa: CCP. Chinese peddlers’ “village”: Mori. Baskets: FLP. Pots: CCP to Rubin, q. in Rubin, “JP and the Modern Tradition, Part I: 1,” p. 22 n. 9. Silverware: FLP; CCP to Rubin, q. in Rubin, “JP and the Modern Tradition,” p. 22 n. 9. Beads: FLP. Blankets: CCP to Rubin, q. in Rubin, “JP and the Modern Tradition,” p. 22 n. 9. Jewelry: FLP. Saturdays: Johnson, Jr., p. 74.

  5. AN ORDINARY FAMILY

  SOURCES

  See Chapter 4.

  NOTES

  “An Ordinary Family”: Manuel Tolegian, q. by Araks: On the surface, the Pollocks “seemed like an ordinary family” (our emphasis). Pigs and cows: FLP: “He was a very able craftsman. If he built a gate, it was absolutely level and the hinges hung just right. And if he made a fence, which he did with barbed wire that he bought in big rolls, every strand—whether it was three-strand or four-strand—was absolutely parallel.” Blue ribbons: Solomon, p. 23. Melons and alfalfa: Conaway, p. 98. Louisiana yams: CCP. Inviting Lizzie to Phoenix: FLP. Watermelon photo: In possession of Hitt. Sandy soil: Mori: The Pollocks’ land was even sandier than the land immediately surrounding it. “A very quiet type”: FLP. Only Frank committed: FLP. Charles delivering papers; family kitty: CCP. Stella refusing to help; insisting on choice vegetables: FLP.

  Reading to Charles and Jay: MJP; FLP: “With the younger sons he didn’t have that much contact.” Kerosene lamp: FLP. Talk of Mississippi trip: CCP. Talk of adoption: MJP. Belief in the “higher power”; slingshots forbidden: FLP. Scolded for destroying eggs: Conaway, p. 128. “Look up from his plow”: MJP. Readings becoming rarer: FLP. Jackson crying for Roy: Conaway, p. 54. “The kind without”: Conaway, p. 59. Shooting at nine: Conaway, p. 19. Driving team at ten: MJP. Charles driving to sanitarium: CCP. Choicest jobs: CCP; FLP; MJP. Walking in order of age: Conaway, p. 57. “Tagging along”: Conaway, p. 56.

  “Low Steps, High Steps”: Conaway, p. 1. Footraces: Conaway, p. 3. “The High Steps were awakened”: Conaway, p. 1. School arrangements: Casto, p. 12. Spoiling Jackson: MJP: “We didn’t ask him to help out around the house. We worked, and he did whatever he wanted to.” MLP: “Maybe the whole family conspired not to let Jack work because they worked so damned hard.” Kadish: “You might say he was just a spoiled little brat, the way everybody took care of him, provided for him.” Jackson waiting for trivial tasks: Conaway, p. 47. “I will too”: Conaway, p. 76. “As I ran”: Conaway, pp. 57–59. “Busy running”: Conaway, p. 131. Jackson referred to as “the baby”: FLP. MLP: “They used to refer to him as baby up until his teenage years.” Jackson’s recurrent dream: Hunter, recalling dream recounted to Greenberg. “His trips”: Conaway, p. 131. Fabricating presence at birth of Brown Jim: Conaway, p. 121. “‘Remember the time”’: Conaway, p. 18.

  “Making mischief”: Kato, q. by FLP. Telling Sande about “playing doctor”: Kadish and Schardt, recalling SLM. Schardt: “He was caught playing doctor once and very severely reprimanded by his parents or by the girl’s parents.”

  “Charles read the funnies”: Conaway, p. 30. Marbles, gum, bubbles: MJP. Jackson and Sande trying to whistle: Conaway, p. 16. Prince; Republican; movies and circus; velodrome; “Model T Polo”: CCP. “Just like Grandma”: EFP. Cody papers: Notably the Cody Enterprise and the Meeteetse News. Cartoons; artistic epiphany: CCP. See CCP to FVOC, Nov. 17, 1963, q. in FVOC, “The Genesis of JP,” pp. 8–9. Mrs. Warner: CCP. Sande thought her name was Mrs. Bidwell, which is why O’Connor calls her that in FVOC, p. 9. Charles cutting out illustrations; “library of art”: CCP. “And learned to make”: “Charles Pollock in Conversation,” p. 12. Wilson School; Ginsu Matsudo; drawing of submarine: CCP. “Charles started”: SLM, int. by Shorthall, 1959. “When Jackson was a little boy”: Jan. 14, 1957.

  Sande shooting birds: FLP. Old enough to hunt: Nine was the required age; SLM, int. by Shorthall, 1959. Sande wanting to go hunting: FLP. Jackson consigned to Sande: Kadish, recalling SLM: “Sande took care of Jack from the time they were toddlers. There could have been some animosity.” EFP (Charles’s first wife, who is very protective of him): “For the first ten or twelve years of Jackson’s life, Charles was like his father and his mother in caring for him in the family.” But all of the evidence suggests that it was Sande who played these roles. Stella holding Sande back: FLP.

  Date of finger incident: Porter. OC&T (IV p. 205) mistakenly assigns the incident to 1923. Roy with zanjero; Stella with Lizzie: MJP. Sande near chopping block: SLM, int. by Shorthall, 1959. The chopping block is visible in photo in possession of AAA; see FVOC, p. 12. Charles Porter present: Porter, Trowbridge. Porter (born Sept. 8, 1908) was eight years old at the time of the incident. Jackson fetching piece of wood: SLM, int. by Shorthall, 1959. Chopping block: CCP. “Porter saw Jack”: SLM, int. by
Shorthall, 1959.

  Rooster swallowing fingertip; “almost a pet”: SLM, int. by Shorthall, 1959. No one saw rooster swallow it: SLM, int. by Shorthall, 1959; Porter. Searching for fingertip: CCP. Porter running home; Jackson led to Stella; Stella reacting calmly and treating wound: SLM, int. by Shorthall, 1959. Stella commandeering horse and buggy: MJP. Dr. Monacle: FLP; Porter. The only other doctor in the area was Dr. Coit Hughes, the Porter family doctor. FLP: “The finger healed. There was some root still there, and the nail grew out—sort of curved over the end of it.”

  “The one who got sick”: SLM, int. by Shorthall, 1959. “Laid his finger”: McGinn to FVOC, May 17, 1964, q. in FVOC, “The Genesis of JP,” p. 6. The story that Porter dared his friends to put their finger on the block and let him cut it off and that JP took the dare is reported in Horn (“JP,” p. 82), but Porter and Trowbridge persuasively deny this. “Were bored”: Horn, “JP,” p. 82. Sande wielding ax: Hults. By punishing himself, was JP trying to punish Sande for abandoning him in favor of Porter? In letting Porter cut off his finger, was he imagining himself in the opposite role, wielding the ax at Porter—like his father castrating a pig, perhaps, or his mother beheading a chicken—instead of daring Porter to wield it at him? Many years later, when frustrated or angry, he often fantasized beheading or castrating people.