Jackson Pollock

by Steven Naifeh

  “Storm after storm”: Wigmore, p. 51: “During one week of that storm, 3.16 inches of rain fell here and Stony Creek went on its greatest rampage since 1915.” Talk of wells and dams: Wigmore, p. 56. Second jobs: Keene. Russian pickers: Finch. Pearce & Frank’s; People’s Store: Keene. Stella’s illness: FLP. Details of illness unknown: Frank later assumed it was a boil on her thigh that had to be lanced. He may be confusing this medical problem with a similar one in Janesville when a sore caused by a rusty can had to be lanced. Charles visiting Orland: CCP. Date of visit: New Year’s weekend indicated in Orland Unit, Jan. 3, 1922. Wigmore, p. 57: New Year’s Day 1922, “bitter cold.” Charles quitting school: CCP: “I began to realize that I wasn’t going to get much of a grade and maybe wouldn’t graduate at all.” “Get involved”: CCP, q. by MJP. Reasons for leaving: CCP: Not only because of his poor grades but because “I had fights with the academic overseers, who objected to the things I wanted to do on the Caduceus.” “Get all of it”; “the educated professions”: Q. by FLP. Only much later did her son recognize the irony of Stella’s position: encouraging her sons to get a good education while “putting a lot of hazards in the way”; FLP. “Isolated”; “something that seemed more important”; Jay’s surveying job: MJP. Frank outwardly submissive: FLP. Frank attending Chico High: FLP. B. W. Shaper, principal of Chico High School, confirms that Frank attended for one year, beginning in September 1922. Homer: FLP. Roy held blameless: FLP: “The only thing I have to stop to think about, and I’ve only done that recently, is why he didn’t get a job in the community, closer to where we lived, so we could all be together.”

  Less and less money: FLP; Cleek: “Times was pretty tough. Folks was awful hard up. As I recall, it doesn’t seem like the Pollocks boys was very flush with money either. They were poor just like the rest of us.” No electricity: Finch. Gauthiers: FLP. Drucks: Finch. Sharps; Stella’s activities on Orland farm; Mortgage; selling farm: FLP. Sale of Orland farm: Sold to George E. Wright of Orland on January 6, 1923; Glenn County Records. FLP: “As far as I can determine, our equity in the Orland farm was sold for a 1920 Studebaker Special 6 and two residential lots, one in the hills above Oakland and another in Half Moon Bay, which is below San Francisco.” Soon after the sale, the Pollocks sold the two properties—sight unseen—through realtors. Possessions lashed to car; Gyp on trip: FLP. Jay along on trip: MJP.

  Arriving in Phoenix: FLP: The family left Chico in June but began living with the Minsches in September. The summer may have been spent in Phoenix looking for a home. “I don’t think my mother had arranged to live with the Minsches before we got there.” Job in Tonto National Forest: Frank is not clear if Roy was fired from the survey crew, if the work just ended, or if the same crew was transferred to Arizona. Hearing of Mrs. Minsch’s death: CCP; FLP. Minsch farm: McGinn. Jacob owned forty acres; but his niece and nephew, whom he “looked out for,” owned eighty more acres. “Raw-boned”; raucous laugh: FLP. Minsch family origins; sharing bunkhouse with Minsch boys: McGinn.

  Walnut Grove School photo: In possession of FLP, who says it was taken February 14, 1922. Photo of outing with Minsches: In possession of McGinn. “The sexiest thing”: LK, q. by Myers. Last picture: In possession of Kligman. Trowbridge and Sabelman: Trowbridge taught JP and Sande in 1921–22; Sabelman taught school the next year, 1922–23, during which the Pollocks left in midyear; Teacher’s Register for Walnut Grove Elementary School, Sept. 4, 1922, to May 23, 1923. “Hand-e-over”: Cleek: “We’d throw the ball and holler ‘hand-e-over.’ Whoever had the ball had to touch somebody on the other side. We drew a little circle—that was the jail—and if you touched anybody, why, they waited in the jail.” “Took a dim view”: Cleek. Birds and animals: McGie, I, p. 220.

  Hiking along Salt River: McGinn; Orville Minsch, q. in Casto, p. 14: “We did the things that all boys do. … Jack loved the desert.” Swimming: McGinn; Orville Minsch, q. in Casto, p. 14. Digging caves: FLP. “Whacked”: McGinn. Stella indifferent: McGinn: “To my knowledge, she was never angry or upset.” Daredevil reputation: McGinn, q. by Casto, incorrectly says it was during this stay in Phoenix that JP lost the tip of his finger and that JP cut it off himself. Birthday swim; Jackson killing cat: McGinn. Peck’s bad boy: Phrase used by Marca-Relli to describe JP as an adult. Jackson refusing to skip school: Phoenix Public School Records show that JP was present 162 days in the school year 1923–24, Sande only 79½. JP was admitted to Monroe School on September 17, 1923.

  No contact with Indian culture: The earliest known contact with Indians was with the Wadatkut who, except for “a few fringes, beads and some beautiful baskets” (Swearingen), had largely adopted the culture of their employers. Shinn and Williams: McMurphy. “Diggers”: McGie, I, p. 223. The term applied to the local Janesville Indians because they had once subsisted on nuts dug from the ground; other regions had other epithets. Shinn kicked to death; Williams dying in fight: McMurphy, recalling Theresa Peterson Carmen Ross. Monteze LeMaster: Cleek; Finch. Monteze’s age: Walnut Grove Elementary School Teacher’s Register, Sept. 4, 1922–May 23, 1923. “That girl was sure handy”: Cleek. Art class: Walnut Grove Elementary School Teacher’s Register, Sept. 4, 1922–May 23, 1923: Much of Friday was devoted to cultural subjects. In addition to art class, the students recited poems from 11:05 until 12:00 and worked on their penmanship from 1:30 until 1:50.

  Jackson going to Chico with Frank: FLP; MJP. Charles drawing for school paper: FLP. “Awful”; “filthy”; Charles clipping reproductions: CCP. Studio: “A Magazine of Fine and Applied Art,” it devoted itself to defending English art from the encroachments of “fetish worship,” a thinly veiled reference to the critical popularity of the new French painting among “turncoat” English critics like Roger Fry and Clive Bell; Hind, “Some Remarks,” p. 3. “I couldn’t resist”: First sentence from our interview; second sentence from “Charles Pollock in Conversation,” p. 12. Stansbury encouraging Charles: CCP; FLP; Tolegian. Victorian house: Clough, pp. 5–11. Description of Stansbury: Patrick; see Clough, pp. 15–16. “She would always encourage”: Patrick. It was Stansbury who deduced that Charles was cutting reproductions from the library magazines, urged him to confess his crime and, by working in the rice fields one summer, to reimburse the library; CCP. Otis Art Institute: CCP. Twenty-four years later, still teaching, she wrote: “I enjoy the students as much if not more than ever. There are always a few who thrill with their work”; Angeline Stansbury to CCP, Dec. 28, 1944.

  “A revelation”: CCP. Articles in Dial: Lawrence, “The Fox,” July, pp. 75–87, Aug., pp. 184–98; Mann, “Tristan,” Dec., pp. 593–610; Russell, “The Aroma of Evanescence,” Nov., pp. 559–62, and “What Is Morality,” Dec., pp. 677–79; Pound, “Paris Letter,” Sept., pp. 332–37, Nov., pp. 549–54; Williams, “When Fresh, It Was Sweet,” Dec., pp. 617–19; Stevens, “Bantams in Pine Woods,” July, pp. 89–93, and others; and Eliot, “The Waste Land,” Nov., pp. 473–85. Art reproductions in Dial: Picasso, “Two Drawings,” Oct.; de Fiori, “Bather,” “Standing Figure,” “Walking Figure,” Aug.; Brancusi, The Golden Bird, Nov.; Marc, Horses, Sept.; Severini, Fresco, Oct. Criticism: Fry, “M Jean Marchand,” Sept., pp. 388–91, and Purrmann, “From the Workshop of Matisse,” July, pp. 32–40. Les Capucines: July. Sande’s artistic aspirations: FLP; ACM; Cooter; Kadish. Sande speaking of Dial on deathbed: CCP.

  Phoenix Union High School: McGinn. Frank cutting classes: FLP. Sande cutting classes: Phoenix Public School Records, 1923–24. Frank drinking in desert: FLP. He stopped drinking entirely in 1962; MLP. Date of Minsch’s marriage to Dowdle: May 1924; McGinn. Trip to Carr Ranch: OC&T IV (p. 205) incorrectly states that “The family moved back to Chico in the spring.” The error originated with Orville Minsch who was quoted by Casto (p. 13) as saying the Pollocks moved back to Chico in early spring of 1924. The error was repeated in OC&T along with the additional error that the Pollocks moved to Riverside from Chico when, in fact, they drove directly from the Carr Ranch to Riverside in early September 1924.

  Wareho
use burned to ground: FLP. Returning to California in fall: FLP. Location of Ranch: Some 15–20 miles north of the intersection of Routes 88 and 288; FLP to authors, Nov. 30, 1983; Tucker. Description of Ranch; “all the cowboys”; “housekeeping cabins”; “native” costumes; FLP. Mogollon Rim: Pronounced “Muggie-own” and named after an early Spanish governor of the Territory of New Mexico. Zane Grey: Branstetter, p. 77: Grey saw his cabin for the first time on September 12, 1922. Team of surveyors: FLP: Roy “wasn’t a surveyor. He was a roadman, or a chainman, or whatever.” Roy visiting Ranch: FLP.

  Day hike to Indian ruins: SLM, int. by Shorthall, 1959; Mead, ”Welcome to Tonto Country,” pp. 18–21; Conaway, pp. 157–79. Given Sande’s description of the hike, the Cherry Creek cliff dwellings must have been the ruins the Pollocks visited. We have used a variation on one particularly felicitous phrase in Arloie’s account: “Gradually the clouds below them were sucked up by the sun, disclosing a vista of unbelievable grandeur”; Conaway, p. 168. Urinating on flat rock: Southgate. Frank says the incident must have occurred during this hike.

  Women doing masonry: Laughlin: Roy was correct. Although the men did the heavy construction work, the women prepared the mud for the bricks and plaster and often did much of the plastering as well, so the handprints JP saw probably were women’s. In retelling the story, Sande guessed that the dwellings they visited had been built by the same Pueblo Indians whose extensive cliff dwellings in Colorado and New Mexico had become national parks; Conaway, pp. 174–76. In fact, the villages of the Tonto Basin were constructed by the Salado Indians between 1300 and 1400 as a defensive measure against marauding Apaches from the north; Mead, ”The Salado,” pp. 42–43.

  8. JACK AND SANDE

  SOURCES

  Books, articles, manuscripts, brochures, documents, and transcripts

  Conn, ed., Current Therapy: 1954; Friedman, JP; Klotz, The Mission Inn; Merritt and Kolb, eds., The Medical Clinics of North America: May 1958; World Almanac 1985; OC&T, JP; McWilliams, Southern California County; Patterson, A Colony for California; Southern California Panama Expositions Commission, Southern California; Polytechnic High School, Riverside, Calif., The Orange and Green: 1928; Robertson, JP; Tingley Centennial History Committee, A History of Tingley, Iowa; Wysuph, JP.

  William Rubin, “JP and the Modern Tradition, Part I: 1. The Myths and the Paintings,” Artforum, Feb. 1967; James H. Wall, “Psychotherapy of Alcohol Addiction in a Private Mental Hospital,” Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol, Mar. 1945.

  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; Loie Conaway, “The High Steps and the Low Steps” (unpub. ms.), n.d.; FVOC, “The Genesis of JP: 1912 to 1943” (Ph.D. thesis), Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1965.

  Riverside Cultural Heritage Board Item, meeting date, Sept. 15, 1982: “Nomination of the JP House, 4196 Chestnut Street, as a Structure of Merit of the City of Riverside”; “Sherman (Institute) Indian High School,” n.d.

  Grant Elementary School Records, Riverside Unified School District, 1926–27.

  JP, int. by Dorothy Seiberling, for Life, July 18, 1949, Time/Life Archives; SLM int. by CG, c. 1956; SLM int. by Kathleen Shorthall for Life, 1959, Time/Life Archives.

  Interviews

  Margaret Louise Archbold; Peter Busa; Tony Citarella; Clare Peterson Cooter; Robert Cooter; Gilbert Crowell; Violet de Laszlo; Harry Jackson; Esther Klotz; ACM; Gordon McMurphy; Vincent Moses; Tom Patterson; CCP; FLP; MJP; MLP; Russ Sweet; May Tabak Rosenberg; Araks Tolegian; E. Fuller Torrey; Roger Wilcox; C. L. Wysuph.

  NOTES

  Pollocks’ belated move: Patterson. Twenty-five years: McWilliams, p. 163: “The Iowa immigration to Southern California started about 1900, momentarily abated during the First World War, and then sharply increased from 1920 to 1930.” Some 160,000 Iowans: McWilliams, p. 163. Between 1920 and 1930, the population only rose from 2,404,021 to 2,470,939; World Almanac 1985, p. 249. Skyrocketing land prices: Farmlands purchased in 1880 for $5 were selling for $75 an acre in 1905; McWilliams, p. 163. All-Year Club: McWilliams, pp. 136–37.

  Typical cars: Klotz. “The first great migration”: McWilliams, p. 135, recalling Edwin Bates. “Hog and hominy”: McWilliams, p. 168. By 1930, a third of all those who had been born in Iowa were living in some other state; McWilliams, p. 24. “What part of Iowa”: McWilliams, p. 170. “On the road”: McWilliams, p. 165. Hot days: FLP. Date of arrival: FLP gives the date as soon after Labor Day 1924; OC&T (IV p. 205) gives it as “late 1924 or early 1925,” perhaps based on the lack of school records for the Pollock boys at Riverside Polytechnic High School. Parade of cars: McWilliams, p. 161.

  Colony settlement; “people of intelligence”: McWilliams, p. 215. English citrus farms: The Riverside Trust Company and the San Jacinto Land Company Limited; Patterson. Tennis and Polo Clubs: Klotz; Patterson. Victoria place names: Moses. First orange trees: McWilliams, p. 209. Development of orange industry: McWilliams, p. 210. “To own a well-stocked”: McWilliams, p. 207, recalling Charles Fletcher Lummis.

  Premier winter resort: Patterson. Riverside later surrendered this reputation to Palm Springs. Naming and enlargement of Mission Inn: Klotz, pp. 6ff. Cultivated and conservative community: Moses. Stella locating home: FLP. The house, numbered 1196 when the Pollocks lived there, still stands, but the address has been changed to 4196. “I never thought”: Robert Cooter. Description of Pollock home: Riverside Cultural Heritage Board Item, Sept. 15, 1982. Stella’s appetite for distinction: FLP: “It was a fine house, and Mother took good care of it.” To help pay the high rent, Stella started serving meals to people like Augusta Weeks, a nurse, and boarding people like Charlie Brockway, a classmate of Frank’s. Frank in Riverside: FLP.

  “The cowboy painter”: Rubin, “JP and the Modern Tradition,” p. 14. For the notion of JP as the “man out of the West,” Rubin cites, in particular, Pierre Restany, “America for the Americans,” Ring des arts, 1960. “Lariats”: Rubin, “JP and the Modern Tradition,” p. 14, citing Rudi Blesh, Modern Art, U.S.A., New York: 1956, p. 253. “Cattle range”: Rubin, “JP and the Modern Tradition,” p. 14, citing Robertson, p. 35, who wrote that JP painted “in the way that a cow-hand wields a lariat.” “Into rapture”: Rubin, “JP and the Modern Tradition,” p. 14: Among young Europeans, especially Frenchmen, “The very virtue of ‘the American’ is that he is supposedly naive, unconscious of, or outside, any traditions of art, and hence ‘styleless’—a kind of Noble Savage. Pollock as cowboy not only fits into the French myth of an école du pacifique (which reaches east to the Badlands as well as west to Japan), but sorts well with the cult of Hollywood westerns celebrated by the young critics of the Cahiers du cinéma.”

  “Saddles and horses”: Int. by Shorthall, 1959. Jackson afraid of horses: Jackson. Single-shot .22s; avoiding large animals: Robert Cooter: They did go deer hunting, but never killed a deer. “The cowboys would get bored”: Int. by Shorthall, 1959. None of SLM’s classmates remembers the cowboys; McMurphy. “All the old codgers”: Int. by Shorthall, 1959. Jackson and Sande’s relative sizes: FLP. Jackson and Sande wrestling: Robert Cooter; ACM. “The runt”: FLP. Punching bag: Robert Cooter. Description of Riverside: See Patterson, pp. 251–60. Water scarce: McWilliams, p. 5. Santa Ana River: The other two “driest rivers” are the Los Angeles and the San Gabriel; McWilliams, p. 6. “Come out all dusty”: Q. in McWilliams, p. 6. “The land does not”: McWilliams, p. 8, recalling Frank Fenton, author of A Place in the Sun. Air and light: McWilliams, pp. 6–7. Description of Jackson and Sande: Photo in possession of ACM. Trips into mountains: Robert Cooter. Hunting in school clothes: FLP. More than 16,000 acres of groves: McWilliams, p. 216. Roaming in groves: Moses. Animals hunted: Robert Cooter.

  Sande emulating Charles: ACM: “I think he [Sande] began to get interested in art probably when he was thirteen or fourteen because Charles was interested in it. The younger brothers, particularly the younger two, were interested in what Charl
es did and were very proud of him. … I think that sparked them.” “I thought Sande”: See also Evelyn Minsch McGinn, q. in Casto, p. 14: “I would have thought that Sandy [sic] would have been the artist of the family because I remember he was the artistic one.” Clare Peterson: Later married to Leon Cooter.

  “Jack got inspired”; visiting Mission Inn: Robert Cooter. Macaws: Klotz, pp. 127–28. Cloister Court: Klotz, p. 28. Spanish Art Gallery; Old Darby and Roman Warriors: Klotz, p. 37. Old Darby was painted in 1884. California Alps: Klotz, p. 49. Lola Montez’s furniture: Klotz, p. 47. Lola Montez was the stage name of Marie Dolores Eliza Rosanna Gilbert (1818–61), a “Spanish” dancer from Ireland who captured the eye of Louis I during a performance in Munich and, by encouraging political liberalism, brought about her own expulsion and his abdication. Buddha: Klotz, p. 65. Dragon: Klotz, p. 64. Ceramic cupid: Klotz, p. 47. “Catacombs”: Moses: The Riverside writer Helen Hunt Jackson had done much to “romanticize our Indian and Spanish pasts” after the city had rejected these pasts in the 1880s and 1890s. Along with a new respect for the missions and for Indians as “the noble savage,” the “wealthy began collecting Indian artifacts.” Conferences and colloquia on American Indians were also held at the Mission Inn during the 1920s. While in Riverside, JP could have seen Indian art at the Sherman Indian Institute (founded in 1892 at Perris, California, as the Perris Indian School, and later transferred to Riverside), a school for the “training of reservation Indians from all over the United States. It was an attempt to Americanize these Indians but by the same token to preserve their artifacts.” During the 1920s, schoolchildren were regularly taken to the Institute on field trips; see “Sherman (Institute) Indian High School,” n.p.