Jackson Pollock

by Steven Naifeh

  Lee calling from Cafeteria: Busa. Keeping visitors to a minimum: LK. “I’m not working”: LK to SMP, Summer 1943. Frank and Sande visiting: JP to CCP, July 29, 1943. Babysitting: LK. “The wonderful things”: LK to SMP, Summer 1943. Losing shoes: JP to SMP, Summer 1943. “People who found”: Weld, p. 388. “Stood over a manhole”: Q. in Weld, p. 327. “Dinner for a few people”; “two maids”; “not catered”: LK, q. in Weld, p. 314. “They would quarrel”: Q. in Weld, p. 325. “Breasts to pop out”: Sterne. “Kookie”: Q. in Weld, p. 314. Lee thinking Peggy nymphomaniacal: Weld, p. 314. “Bitch”: Q. in Weld, p. 306. “Too much money”: LK. Guggenheim attitude toward Russian Jews: See Weld, pp. 34ff. “Holding a job”: Kiesler, int. by Landau. “He was grateful”: Q. in Weld, p. 325.

  “Cordon bleu chef”: Putzel to JP, Fall 1943. “Mrs. Goodspeed”: Putzel to JP, Oct. 1943. “[James Thrall] Soby”: Putzel to JP, Oct. 1943. Artist-correspondent: JP to SMP, Summer 1943. Reynal buying work: Reynal to LK and JP, Aug. 4, 1943: She paid for the painting in five installments of $100 each. Morley offering exhibition: LK to SMP, Summer 1943. Morley wanting Guardians: Kadish. “I enjoyed very much”: Janis to JP, Sept. 27, 1943. Reproduction of Guardians: Janis, no. 64, p. 22. Reproduction of She-Wolf: Janis, color plate 80, p. 113. Greenberg becoming a critic: CG, int. by Shorthall, Nov. 9, 1959. “I don’t think he’ll take it”: LK to SMP, Summer 1943. Pollock family withholding judgment: If JP expected support, even purchases, from his family—which he did—none was to be found; FLP; MJP. “My painting had him worried”: JP to CCP, July 29, 1943.

  Showing Lehman paintings: On another occasion Lehman claimed he saw the paintings in JP’s studio. Lehman knowing Putzel in L.A.; moving to Woodstock: Lehman, who, despite his early promise, had almost disappeared from the American art scene. “These small pictures”: Putzel to JP, 1943. Riley a friend of Putzel’s: Putzel to LK and JP, 1943, in which he refers to Riley as “a friend at court.” “Born in Wyoming”: Riley, “Fifty-Seventh Street in Review,” p. 18. Endorsement penned by Putzel: Lader, pp. 225–26, citing PG, int. by Lader, Apr. 4, 1978: “[Putzel] was writing many, if not all, of the press releases for Art of This Century at the time.” “One of the strongest”: “Young Man from Wyoming,” p. 11.

  Introduction request by Peggy: Sweeney. “Talent, will,”: Introduction to Art of This Century, n.p. Jackson throwing catalogue; “undisciplined”: LK. “He was furious”: See also LK, q. in DP&G, “Who was JP?” p. 51. “Fine introduction”: LK, q. in DP&G, “Who was JP?” p. 51. Sweeney on committee at MOMA: Hunter, “Introduction, to MOMA, p. 22. “Dear Sweeney”: JP to Sweeney, Nov. 3, 1943 (emphasis added). Repainting Search for a Symbol: A number of accounts say JP painted the work specifically for Sweeney after reading his introduction (DP&G, “Who was JP?” p. 51, and Friedman, p. 61), but it had already been painted. He may well have done some repainting after reading the introduction. “I want you to see”: Q. by LK.

  Small crowd; warm night: Reis. Conflict: OC&T 91, I, p. 82: 12 by 15½ inches. Prices: Listed in Art News, Nov. 15, 1943, p. 23. Uniforms in evidence: Zogbaum. Lassaw on leave: Lane and Larsen, eds., p. 183. Matter loan: OC&T 92, I, pp. 82–83. The painting, a wedding gift to the Matters, was listed as “10. Untitled” in the catalogue. The Matters later lost the work, although it turned up in other hands; Matter; see OC&T I, p. 92. “Sweeney did so much”: PG, p. 254. Description of Jackson at opening: Kadish. Reis says he was “terribly nervous.” “A little boy”: Reis. “Sixty times”: LK. “At least a quart”: Reis. “Lee protesting party: LK. “A wild man”: Q. by Wilcox. “Very Masson”: Q. in Simon, “Concerning the Beginnings of the New York School,” p. 19. “Burst a blood vessel”: Q. by Somberg. Scribbled obscenities: Weld, p. 324. “Pollock unnerved me”: Ethel Schwabacher, q. in Weld, p. 324. “A belch”: Greene.

  Outpouring of publicity: Lader, pp. 230–31. Reviews: Coates, review, p. 49; CG, “Marc Chagall, Lyonel Feininger, JP,” p. 621; Jewell, review, NYT; McB[ride], review, New York Sun, clipping in JP artist file N.Y. Public Library, misdated in file, cited in Lader, p. 228; Motherwell, “Painters Objects,” pp. 93–97; review, Art News, Nov. 15, 1943; Riley, “Fifty-Seventh Street in Review,” p. 18. “A kaleidoscope”: Clipping in JP artist file N.Y. Public Library, misdated in file cited in Lader, p. 228. “An authentic discovery”: Coates, review, p. 49. “We like all this”: Riley, review, p. 18. “Among the strongest”: CG, “Marc Chagall, Lyonel Feininger, JP,” p. 621. “Mr. Pollock’s forcefulness”: Coates, review, p. 49. “Out a-questing”: Riley, “Fifty-Seventh Street in Review,” p. 18. “The first painter”: CG, “Marc Chagall, Lyonel Feininger, JP,” p. 621.

  “[Jackson’s] abstractions”; “his work is personal”: Review, Art News, p. 177. “A young Western”: Coates, review, p. 49. “A sense of history”: Kramer, “The Inflation of JP.”

  Lee at gallery every day: Weld, p. 293. Macpherson not enthusiastic: PG, p. 248: “I liked the mural but Kenneth couldn’t bear it.” Position of mural: Kamrowski: The painting was too tall to stand flat against the wall, and thus was set at an angle. Jackson sitting and staring: Little, recalling LK, q. in Potter, p. 75. Little says JP stared at the mural “for months,” but this isn’t possible. “More and more depressed”: PG, p. 247. “Made the leap”: Busa. Bill and Ethel Baziotes to dinner: Baziotes; see also JP to Bill Baziotes, Dec. 15, 1943, in the William Baziotes Collection: “Dear Bill Can we expect you and Ethel Thursday night about six thirty hope you can make it best Jack Wednesday.” The “Thursday” in question was December 23.

  Stipend in jeopardy: Little: “They needed the money.” The mural itself involved no extra compensation beyond JP’s monthly stipend of $150. If Little’s story is correct—and he is very definite about it—the only financial coercion that Peggy could have exercised was withholding the stipend. Holidays with Sande: JP to SMP, Feb. 4, 1944. Visits from Sande: SLM visited New York in late July; JP to CCP, July 29, 1943. He also probably came down for the November show. “Enduring”; “dump”: SLM to CCP, June 27, 1943. Seventy-eight-hour weeks: JP to CCP, July 29, 1943.

  Jackson locked in: LK. “I don’t know what”: Q. by Little. Not disturbing Jackson: Little, in Strokes of Genius. “Could only wring her hands”: Little. “I had a vision”: Q. by Jackson. JP described the same vision to Busa and Kadish on separate occasions. Images obliterated: Busa: “He told me that he obliterated specific references in that painting which came from his unconscious.” “Every animal”: Q. by Jackson. Bentonesque lines: See Polcari, “JP and THB,” p. 124: “In Mural of 1943 Pollock took up Benton’s challenge of creating a horizontally extended rhythmic pattern. In such a composition, Benton suggested, several poles would have to be disposed along the horizontal axis and rhythmic counterpoint disposed around them. Pollock’s ‘poles’ are arbitrarily lengthened vertical contours, and around them are disposed myriad biomorphic forms.” Color in the Guggenheim mural: Color seems to have been secondary to structure in JP’s eyes: Mercer remembers JP telling him, “When I looked at the Guggenheim mural, I had to push color aside.”

  Fifteen hours: There is disagreement about how long the physical act took. Estimates range from three hours (PG, p. 247) to six hours (Kamrowski) to several days (Lehman). The most reliable and consistent story is that it took JP from about sundown to about sunup (Little), or “fifteen hours” (Wilcox). “Became hysterical”; “knowing his weakness”; “come home”: PG, p. 248. Calling Duchamp and Hare: PG (p. 248) says the second individual was “a workman,” but Weld (p. 326) says it was Hare, quoting him as a source. “Wanted us to tack it up”: Hare, int. by Weld, Feb. 26, 1979, q. in Weld, p. 326. Jackson incoherent: Wilcox. Jackson going to marble fireplace: Brach, “Tandem Paint,” p. 92. Urinating: Friedman, p. 80; PG, pp. 247–48; Lader, p. 288; Weld, p. 326. All of Peggy’s accounts say that JP was naked. But several eyewitnesses and other accounts disagree; Busa; Wilcox. In our opinion, stripping implies a degree of premeditation inconsistent with his state of inebriation and a degree of exhibitionism inconsistent with
his character. Busa: Peggy told him that, later that same evening, “Jackson fell asleep and vomited all over my bed.”

  30. FRUITS AND NUTS

  SOURCES

  Books, articles, manuscripts, and transcripts

  Abel, The Intellectual Follies; Ashton, The New York School; Friedman, JP; Harvard Law School, Alumni Directory of the Harvard Law School; Moffett, Art in Narrow Streets; MOMA, Museum of Modern Art; Cindy Nemser, Art Talk; FVOC, JP; OC&T; Potter, To a Violent Grave; Solomon, JP; Spoto, The Kindness of Strangers; Weld, Peggy; Williams, Memoirs.

  Answers to questionnaire, Arts & Architecture, Feb. 1944; Bruce Glaser, “JP, an Interview with LK,” Arts, Apr. 1967; Grace Glueck, “Krasner and Pollock: Scenes from a Marriage,” Art News, Dec. 1981; Hayden Herrera, “John-Graham: Modernist Turns Magus,” Arts, Oct. 1976; “JP: An Artists’ Symposium, Part I,” Art News, Apr. 1967; Robert Motherwell, “Painters’ Objects,” Partisan Review, Winter 1944; Vivien Raynor, “JP—‘He Broke the Ice,’” NYT Magazine, Apr. 2, 1967; Maude Riley, “Rejected Youth,” Art Digest, May 15, 1944; Barbara Rose, “American Great: LK,” Vogue, June 1972; Sidney Simon, “Concerning the Beginnings of the New York School: 1939–1943, An Interview with Peter Busa and Matta,” Art International, Summer 1967; James Johnson Sweeney, “Five American Painters,” Harper’s Bazaar, Apr. 1944; Amei Wallach, “Krasner’s Triumph,” Vogue, Nov. 1983.

  Samuel G. Freedman, “Julian Beck, 50, Is Dead; Founded Living Theater,” NYT, Sept. 17, 1985; Robert Taylor, “LK: Artist in Her Own Right,” Boston Globe, May 18, 1980; Amei Wallach, “Out of JP’s Shadow,” Newsday, Sept. 23, 1981.

  Melvin Paul Lader, “PG’s Art of ‘This Century: The Surrealist Milieu and the American Avant-Garde, 1942–1947” (Lader) (Ph.D. thesis), Newark: University of Delaware, 1981; FVOC, “The Genesis of JP: 1912 to 1932” (Ph.D. thesis), Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1965; May Natalie Tabak, “A Collage” (unpub. ms.), n.d.

  Robert Motherwell, int. by Paul Cummings, Nov. 24, 1971; Feb. 21, 1972; Mar. 30, 1972; May 1, 1974, AAA.

  Interviews

  Lionel Abel; Emil de Antonio; Ethel Baziotes; Ward Bennett; Nell Blaine; Paul Brach; Charlotte Park Brooks; James Brooks; Fritz Bultman; Peter Busa; Reginald Cabral; Nicolas Calas; Lynn Cannastra; Nicholas Carone; Herman Cherry; Dorothy Dehner; Salvatore Del Deo; Muriel Francis; Sanford Friedman; David Gibbs; Cynthia Goodman; CG; Balcomb Greene; Chaim Gross; Ben Heller; Harry Holtzman; Axel Horn; Richard Howard; Elizabeth Wright Hubbard II; Merle Hubbard; Sam Hunter; Philip Johnson; Reuben Kadish; Gerome Kamrowski; Edgar Kaufmann, Jr.; Lillian Olaney Kiesler; Lincoln Kirstein; Maria Piacenza Kron; Ernestine Lassaw; John Little; Herbert Matter; ACM; Hazel Guggenheim McKinley; George McNeil; George Mercer; John Bernard Myers; Alfonso Ossorio; CCP; EFP; David Porter; Beatrice Ribak Mandelman; Becky Reis; May Tabak Rosenberg; Nene Schardt; Jane Smith; James Johnson Sweeney; Araks Tolegian; Samuel Wagstaff; Steve Wheeler; Betsy Zoghaum.

  NOTES

  “Jackson usually drank”: LK; see also Raynor, “JP—‘He Broke the Ice,’” p. 72. Chelsea Hotel lunch: McKinley: Some time later, McKinley returned to the Chelsea and suggested that they cut the piece out of the carpet and frame it.

  Jackson kept away from gallery: Wagstaff: “I remember Peggy telling me that she tried to keep Pollock out of the gallery because he was always so drunk.” “Perfectly nice”: Q. by Wagstaff. Paintings dispersed: For exhibitions, see FVOC, “The Genesis of JP,” p. 34; for sales, see Lader, pp. 229–30. “Nameless smaller work”: Porter. FVOC, “The Genesis of JP,” p. 35: There is no record of what works appeared in Porter’s gallery. Among other painters in his 1944 show, “A Painting Prophecy 1950,” were Richard Pousette-Dart, Mark Rothko, and Clyfford Still. Pinocatheca show: May 9–27, 1944. Sales: Mr. and Mrs. James Davidson Taylor bought some gouaches and drawings; Lader, p. 230, citing Davidson Taylor to Lader, July 5, 1978. Mrs. Lloyd buying Male and Female: Lader, p. 230, citing Eleanor B. Lloyd to Lader, July 24, 1978: Lloyd had bought it by the time it joined the show in Chicago (Mar. 5–31, 1945). “[Pollock] represents”: Motherwell, “Painters’ Objects,” p. 97. Accepting Motherwell’s help: Solomon, p. 146. Later, Lee claimed that Putzel, not Motherwell, assisted JP with this interview. OC&T IV, p. 232. “Where were you born?”: Arts &: Architecture, Feb. 1944, p. 14. “American painters have generally”: Emphasis added.

  Barr detesting Jackson: “Detested” is de Antonio’s word. Barr tweedy, cultured: Brach. Barr’s background: Sam Hunter, “Introduction,” to MOMA, pp. 10–11. The college was Wellesley. Shape of the Museum’s collection: De Antonio: “Barr was really an enemy of Abstract Expressionism. He was totally hooked on French art, which was the appropriate place to be in 1929 when he started as the first director at MOMA. But as the world changed and it became apparent that what was taking place here in America was more interesting than what was left in France, Barr wasn’t interested. He hated those guys personally and he detested their work. … At that point, official culture hated those people, and Barr stood for advanced, civilized, official culture.” It was another four or five years before Barr was convinced, according to Philip Johnson, at which point “He introduced me to Pollock. He thought Jackson was the number one painter in the country. Of course, he was very generous to the other AbEx painters, too. He took me to Rothko’s studio because I had to buy a painting of his for the museum [with my personal funds]. Barr said, ‘Look, my damn trustees don’t want to go for this and I’ve got to have it.’ So I bought it. That’s what I did with Rothko and Kline, too.”

  She-Wolf recommended and reserved: Lader, p. 229. Janis campaigning for purchase: Janis to JP, Sept. 27, 1943: Janis was promoting the purchase of She-Wolf even though it was Male and Female in Search of a Symbol that he considered “the most provocative painting by an American I’ve seen.” Friedman, p. 64, says the museum debated the purchase from the November show through the May purchase. But according to Betsy Jones of MOMA (to James T. Vallière, Nov. 12, 1965), the purchase of She-Wolf was approved at the next scheduled meeting of the acquisitions committee after the November show. Museum’s traveling show: Feb. 3–May 17; Sweeney. Frank saw the show and wrote JP: “She-Wolf is hung to excellent advantage in the galleries and catches the eye immediately upon entering the gallery a quarter of a block away. … it seemed more meaningful than when I saw it in the cramped space of your studio last year.” National audience for She-Wolf: Cincinnati Museum of Art, Feb. 8–Mar. 12; Denver Art Museum, Mar. 26–Apr. 23; Seattle Art Museum, May 7–June 10; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, June–July; San Francisco Museum of Art, July. Janis asking for lower price: “they couldn’t afford”: LK, q. in Weld, p. 325. “Go tell them”: PG, q. by LK, q. in Weld, p. 325.

  “He didn’t say a word”: Q. in Potter, p. 79. Harper’s Bazaar: Sweeney, “Five American Painters”; see Glaser, “JP,” p. 38: The other featured artists were Morris Graves, Gorky, Avery, and Matta. “Clinched the deal”: LK; see also Weld, p. 325. “Not particularly”: Sweeney. Purchase order issued: Betsy Jones, MOMA, to James T. Vallière, Nov. 12, 1965. Hunter, having seen the in-museum memoranda, recalls that “Sweeney was very pro-Pollock, but he met with resistance from Barr and Soby.” “Very happy”: Q. in Solomon, p. 146.

  “Dedicated” herself: PG (p. 264) claims that she dedicated herself to JP starting in 1943 (a claim that does not comport with other accounts): “I worked hard to interest people in his work and never tired of doing so. … One day Mrs. Harry Winston, the famous Detroit collector, came to the gallery to buy a Masson. I persuaded her to buy a Pollock instead.” But this work (OC&T 130, I, p. 129) is officially dated c. 1945 and was probably bought out of the 1946 show. “Into the right hands”: Q. by Porter. Giving drawings as gifts: PG, p. 264.

  “I am getting $150”: JP to CCP, May 1944. “Slight recognition”; “same low figure”: SLM to CCP, May 4, 1944. “Didn’t get any cash”: SMP to CCP, EFP, and Jeremy, May 24, 1944. Jackson’s complaints to Putzel: Putzel to JP, May 1944. Colored drawing; works in Spring Salon: Lader, p. 392
: There were also works by several minor artists. “Attack on Peggy’s integrity: Riley, “Rejected Youth,” p. 15. “Detected a decline”: Lader, p. 169, citing Ethel Baziotes, int. by Lader, Nov. 4, 1976. Rumors of Peggy’s departure; “look out for themselves”: Lader, p. 169, citing Robert Motherwell to William Baziotes, n.d., the William Baziotes Collection. Artists wooed by Kootz: PG, p. 264; Weld, p. 334. “Probably—possibly”: Putzel to JP, May 1944, p. 233.

  “Rather wild”: PG to Herbert Read, Nov. 12, 1945, Herbert Read Archives, q. in Weld, p. 337. Unwieldy canvases: She displayed the eight-foot Pasiphaë in the April 1944 “First Exhibition in America” show. “Much weaker”; “much more readily”: PG to Herbert Read, Nov. 12, 1945, Herbert Read Archives, q. in Weld, p. 337: “My chief function seems to be to find and give unknown artists a chance, and I have quite a few who are really worthwhile. … [JP] is, I think, the best of all these new young people, and may sometime be as well known as Miró. I support him, and Sweeney and I have in a measure got him very well started. His painting is rather wild and frightening and difficult to sell. Motherwell, on the contrary, is much weaker, and his taste is so perfect that he sells much more readily.” “Devilish”: PG, p. 264. “I did sell”: Q. in Weld, p. 325. “I concentrated”: PG, p. 264. “Go out and get a job”: Q. by Porter. “Generally spartan”: Weld, p. 107. “Too good to waste”: Q. by Weld, p. 107. “She did not create”: Weld, p. 107. Soon after the gallery opened, she had imposed an unprecedented twenty-five-cent admission charge and sat by the door gleefully collecting quarters until persuaded that she was discouraging visitors; Weld, pp. 292–93.