Jackson Pollock

by Steven Naifeh

  Portrait of H.M.: OC&T 126, I, pp. 124–25. Slivka’s visit: Slivka. Heat; crowd at show: SMP to CCP, Apr. 5, 1945: “Was very hot in the City for March in the 80 most of the time and one day up to 84°.” Admiration for brushwork: Art News (“Passing Shows,” p. 6) was basically negative: JP “derives his style from that of Kandinsky though he lacks the airy freedom and imaginative color of the earlier master.” “Big, sprawling”: Devree, “Among the New Exhibitions,” p. 8. “Nervous, if rough”: The review was archly titled “Nature and Madness among the Younger Painters,” p. 30. “Belligerence”: Riley, “JP,” p. 59.

  Unequivocal praise: Frankenstein, “World of Art and Artists”: “The flare and spatter and fury of his paintings are emotional rather than formal, and like the best jazz, one feels that much of it is the result of inspired improvisation rather than conscious planning.” In the next breath, however, he called the mediocre woodcuts of an artist named Charles Smith “no less interesting.” “Jackson Pollock’s one-man show”: CG, “Art” p. 397. Delayed reaction: CG: “I wasn’t bowled over at first. I didn’t realize what I’d seen until later.” Baziotes and Motherwell going to Kootz: Weld, p. 334.

  Philip Guston: Brach. Years in Iowa: Ashton, p. 51. Influenced by Regionalism: Lehman, who says that although Guston “disliked intensely” the work of Grant Wood, “the artistic influences out there appealed to a side of Phil that was extremely sentimental, even schmaltzy, if you will.” Musa’s taste for sentiment: Horn. Mother Goose story: Ashton, p. 65. Guston’s transformation: Those close to him could excuse the work, or even praise it, as Ashton later would (p. 66), as a masterpiece of “mood and atmosphere, of stillness and mystery, of sublimated ritual.” Provincial curiosities: Reuben Kadish, whose son Daniel later married Guston’s daughter Musa: “I think that hurt Guston, at least artistically, to be out in Iowa all those years.” Midtown Galleries exhibition: Midtown Galleries, “Philip Guston.” “Place of honor”: Lehman. “Living masters”: Art News, p. 194; among the others “headed for immortality” was Vincent Spagna. Guston won the first prize at the Carnegie Institute’s annual exhibition, which opened on October 11, 1945; “Carnegie Awards Prizes for 1945,” p. 7.

  Guston competitive: Cherry: “When he left Marlborough Gallery, he said to me, ‘I don’t give a goddamn about being in a gallery any more, my name is in all the history books anyway.’ That’s a fabulous ego. History was apparently a big thing in his mind.” “Long-drawn-out fistfight”: Busa, recalling Guston. “Broke down”: Reuben Kadish, q. by Cherry. Guston abandoning sentimentalism: Busa; Cherry; Reuben Kadish; Lehman. Brach disagrees with their reasoning.

  “Absolutely against it”: In Strokes of Genius. “Ultimatum”: Q. in Glueck, “Krasner and Pollock,” p. 60; see also Strokes of Genius: “I gave him the ultimatum, either we get married or split.” “It just snapped”: Q. by Stolbach. She told Greenberg the same thing. “I said [to Jackson]”: Q. in Nemser, p. 87; see also Gibbs; Strokes of Genius; Glueck, “Krasner and Pollock,” p. 60. “Cannonball”: Brooks. “Shack”: SMP to CCP, EFP, and Jeremy, July 9, 1945. From Hayter: Reuben Kadish. A month already gone; “cleaned up his brushes”: SMP to CCP, EFP, and Jeremy, July 9, 1945.

  High tide: Liss. The Lisses rented the same house the following summer, and Millie Liss says that JP and Kadish used to leave garbage under the house to be carried away by the high tide, although sometimes the tide didn’t reach high enough and the place “turned into a dump.” The Sound: Block Island Sound. Description of sight: Slivka. Description of shack: Potter, p. 80. Searching for clams; fishing; racing down road: Barbara Kadish. Doting on Patia: Rosenberg. Clam chowder: S. W. Hayter, q. in Potter, p. 80. Slivka’s visit: Slivka. Putzel dying: Weld, p. 336. Receiving news of war: Reuben Kadish. Krasner on bike: Barbara Kadish. Jackson not working: Reuben Kadish. Falling into tar: Barbara Kadish, q. in Potter, p. 80. “Impossible”; “always found a way”: Reuben Kadish. “A weekend”: LK; LK (drafted by Vallière) to FVOC, Sept. 10, 1966; DP&G, ”Who Was JP?” p. 50. Pollock family threat of boycott: FLP.

  Inquiries about rentals: LK. “‘What do you think’”: LK; see similar version in Rose, “American Great,” p. 154. “‘Are you crazy?’”: LK. Few weeks later: LK, cited in Rose, “American Great,” p. 154: two or three weeks later; LK, cited in DP&G, ”Who Was JP?” p. 50: three days later. Given LK’s tendency to telescope time to heighten dramatic effect, the first estimate seems more likely. “We’re leaving”: LK. Lee stunned: Rose, “American Great,” p. 154.

  Brooks finding another apartment: Potter, p. 80. Frank moving to farm: FLP to SMP, Oct. 23, 1945. Jackson eager to be father: Hubbard; Reuben Kadish. When news came that Frank’s son Jonathan was “seriously ill,” “Jack broke down and cried”; SMP reported to CCP, EFP, and Jeremy, Nov. 5, 1945.

  “Pollock didn’t basically move”: Q. in Vallière, “Daniel T. Miller,” p. 34, emphasis added. Real-estate agent: “Captain” Merton Edwards, according to LK, q. in Liss, “Memories of Bonac Painters.” House sold: LK, q. in DP&G, “Who Was JP?” p. 50; but LK, q. in Liss, “Memories of Bonac Painters”: The house was merely “taken off the market.” Motherwell recruiting: See Weld, p. 276. In most of her later interviews, Lee incorrectly identified Dan Miller as the man who put them in touch with Ed Cook. Cook: Cook: “Motherwell was building his Quonset hut on a piece of property I found for him, and he brought Lee and Jackson Pollock in to see me and asked if there was anything available.”

  “A steal”: Cook. “Didn’t have forty dollars”: LK, q. in DP&G, “Who Was JP?” p. 50, emphasis in the original. See Potter, p. 86. The chronology of Peggy’s financing of the house has been widely misstated. We think the error originated with Peggy, who thought she had lent JP and Lee the money in 1945 when, in fact, the papers lending them the money were drawn up and signed sometime in the first three months of 1946; see Weld, p. 343. Peggy’s recollection put the loan even before JP and Lee went to East Hampton for the first time. A close reading of Lee’s interviews confirms that they rented the house first, then subsequently persuaded Peggy to make the loan. Whether the loan was informally agreed to by the time the house was rented, long before the paperwork was completed, is unknown. Deposit borrowed: Cook.

  “Non-practicing Jew”: LK. “God will understand”: Q. by Rosenberg. “Be very quiet”: LK, q. by Stolbach. Guggenheim refusing to attend: Peggy (see Weld, p. 344) later said she was still angry at Lee for borrowing the $2,000 for the Springs house, but at the time of the wedding, the transaction had not yet been finalized and probably had not yet been initiated. May confused with another: Rosenberg; Friedman, p. 82. “If May isn’t there”: Q. by Rosenberg: “He wanted something pure for his wedding.” When Lee went back to Peggy, she said, “I already have a luncheon that day.” “It was a beautiful”: Q. in Weld, p. 343.

  Jay in Flushing; disposition of rooms: MJP. No paintings moved to Springs: See Friedman, p. 82. Blankets and rugs: MJP to James T. Vallière, Apr. 25, 1965. Reuben Kadish: In the 1930s JP and Kadish had admired the dozen brightly patterned blankets as exciting samples of primitive art. Arrangement not honored: MJP to James T. Vallière, Apr. 25, 1965. Weekend of November 3: SMP to CCP, EFP, and Jeremy, Nov. 5, 1945. “Northeaster”: LK, q. in Rose, “American Great,” p. 54. Butcher’s truck: Liss, “Memories of Bonac Painters.”

  32. STARTING OVER

  SOURCES

  Books, articles, manuscripts, film, and transcripts

  Barrett, The Truants; Epstein and Barlow, East Hampton; Frascina, ed., Pollock and After; Friedman, JP; Gruen, The Party’s Over Now; Guild Hall, Artists and East Hampton; Guild Hall, Crosscurrents; PG, Out of This Century; Kligman, Love Affair; Kunitz, ed., Twentieth Century Authors; Namuth, Pollock Painting; Potter, To a Violent Grave; Rose, LK; Solomon, JP; Tabak, But Not for Love; Weld, Peggy.

  Robert Alan Aurthur, “Hitting the Boiling Point, Freakwise, at East Hampton,” Esquire, June 1972; DP&G, “Who Was JP?” Art in America, May–June 1967; Grace Glueck, “Krasner and Pollock: Scenes from a Marriage,�
�� Art News, Dec. 1981; CG, “Art,” Nation, Apr. 7, 1945; CG, “Art,” Nation, Apr. 13, 1946; CG, “Avant-Garde and Kitsch,” Partisan Review, Fall 1939; CG, “Jean Dubuffet, JP,” Nation, Feb. 1, 1947; CG, “Towards a Newer Laocoön,” Partisan Review, July–Aug. 1940; “JP: An Artists’ Symposium, Part I,” Art News, Apr. 1967; Ellen Johnson, “JP and Nature,” Studio International, June 1973; Barbara M. Reise, “Greenberg and The Group: A Retrospective View,” Studio International, May 1968; “Reviews and Previews,” Art News, May 1946; Gaby Rodgers, “She Has Been There Once or Twice: A Talk with LK,” Women Artists Newsletter, Dec. 1977; Barbara Rose, “American Great: LK,” Vogue, June 1972; William Rubin, “JP and the Modern Tradition, Part III: Cubism and the Later Evolution of the AllOver Style,” Artforum, Apr. 1967; “The Summer Place,” Time, Aug. 14, 1964; “Unframed Space,” New Yorker, Aug. 5, 1950; James T. Vallière, “Daniel T. Miller,” Provincetown Review, Fall 1968; Ben Wolf, “Fifty-Seventh Street in Review,” Art Digest, Apr. 15, 1946.

  Florence Haxton Bullock, “Stripped Down to Sex,” New York Herald Tribune Weekly Book Review, Apr. 28, 1946; Grace Glueck, “Met Acquires Early Pollock,” NYT, Jan. 13, 1982; Joseph Liss, “Abstraction at Louse Point,” East Hampton Star, Feb. 25, 1982; Amei Wallach, “LK: Out of JP’s Shadow,” Newsday, Aug. 23, 1981.

  Melvin Paul Lader, “PG’s Art of This Century: The Surrealist Milieu and the American Avant-Garde, 1942–47” (Lader) (Ph.D. thesis), Newark: University of Delaware, 1981; Ellen Gross Landau, “LK: A Study of Her Early Career (1926–1949)” (Ph.D. thesis), Newark: University of Delaware, 1981; May Natalie Tabak, “A Collage” (unpub. ms.), n.d.

  Strokes of Genius: JP (film), Court Productions, 1984.

  Elwyn Harris, int. by Kathleen Shorthall for Life, Nov. 9, 1959, Time/Life Archives; CG, int. by Kathleen Shorthall for Life, Nov. 9, 1959, Time/Life Archives; CG, int. by James T. Vallière, Mar. 20, 1968, AAA; Daniel T. Miller, int. by Kathleen Shorthall for Life, Nov. 9, 1959, Time/Life Archives; George Schaefer, int. by Kathleen Shorthall for Life, Nov. 9, 1959, Time/Life Archives; Richard and Allene Talmage, int. by Kathleen Shorthall for Life, Nov. 9, 1959, Time/Life Archives.

  Interviews

  Ethel Baziotes; Paul Brach; Charlotte Park Brooks; James Brooks; Fritz Bultman; Peter Busa; Nicholas Carone; Giorgio Cavallon; John Cole; Mike Collins; Edward Cook; Mary Louise Dodge; Nina Federico; Phyllis Fleiss; David Gibbs; Grace Glueck; CG; Balcomb Greene; Grace Hartigan; Eleanor Hempstead; Harry Holtzman; Edward Hults; Ted Hults; Harry Jackson; Reuben Kadish; Gerome Kamrowski; Hilton Kramer; LK; John Lee; Millie Liss; Terry Liss; John Little; Cile Downs Lord; Conrad Marca-Relli; Dorothy Miller; George Sid Miller; Lucia Mullican; John Bernard Myers; EFP; David Porter; May Tabak Rosenberg; Carol Southern; Ronald Stein; Ruth Stein; Allene Talmage; Esteban Vicente; Harriet Vicente; Steve Wheeler; Roger Wilcox.

  NOTES

  Miller one-eyed: George Sid Miller: “As a kid he shoved a knife in his eye, and at one time I think he was the only one-eyed licensed airplane pilot in the United States.” “Wild-hide”; “didn’t know much”: Miller, q. in Vallière, “Daniel T. Miller,” p. 35. “That old Pollock”: Reconstructed from Dan Miller, int. by Shorthall, Nov. 9, 1959, and Vallière, “Daniel T. Miller,” p. 35.

  Springs: Population at the time about 360; Solomon, p. 161. Hundred years: Ever since the 1870s, when the Long Island Railroad opened eastern Long Island up to New Yorkers by extending the line to Bridgehampton; Helen A. Harrison, “Guild Hall and East Hampton: A History of Growth and Change,” in Guild Hall, Crosscurrents, p. 42. Tile Club: Guild Hall, Artists and East Hampton, p. 7. Guild Hall: Guild Hall, Crosscurrents, p. 43. Bathers; “almost English”: “The Summer Place,” p. 46. Clambakes: See, e.g., Seaside Sketches: A Clam Bake, by Winslow Homer, in Guild Hall, Artists and East Hampton, p. 14. Fishermen: See, e.g., Captain Bickford’s Float by John Twachtman, in Guild Hall, Artists and East Hampton, p. 17. Bizarre games: Tabak, “Surrealist Fun and Games,” in “Collage,” pp. 446–49: Like inviting friends to a party, then watching from the bushes as they arrived at an empty house. “Parisian” sky: Attributed to Lucia Wilcox in “The Summer Place,” p. 46. “Where can we find”: Paraphrased from Helen Phillips, q. in Potter, p. 86.

  East Hampton and Springs: Edward Hults; Talmage. “Below the bridge”: Talmage. Lionel Gardiner: See Rattray, p. 86. Springs families: Ted Hults and (for Lester) Aurthur, “Hitting the Boiling Point,” p. 94. Bonacker phrases; Bonackers: Edward Hults. Impact of Roosevelt: Talmage. “She felt cast down”; “just to spruce”; offer refused: Glueck. “Bonackers are Bonackers”: Q. in Potter, p. 88.

  Sleeping until noon: See “Unframed Space,” p. 16; Little; LK, q. in DP&G, “Who Was JP?” p. 50. Big money: Cook. Story of arrival: Dodge. “The strange city couple”: George Sid Miller. No car or coal: LK, cited in Landau, “LK,” p. 221: War rationing was still in effect. “That crazy artist”: Cook. Bicycling to Miller’s: Edward Hults. Young boys: Collins. “Wears a rope”: Millie Liss. “Never shaves”: Name withheld by request. Buying booze: George Sid Miller. Jungle Pete’s: Federico. “Uppity”: Edward Hults. “Common as dirt”: Name withheld by request. “Helloo”: Edward Hults. “Drifts”: Cook. “Unspoiled”: Tabak, But Not for Love, p. 29. Drifts natural resources: Tabak, But Not for Love, p. 25. “I’m going to be a Bonacker”: Q. by George Sid Miller, q. in Potter, p. 89. “You only got to wait”: George Sid Miller, q. in Potter, p. 89.

  “I opened the door”: JP to Ed and Wally Strautin, Nov. 29, 1945. Kitchen stove: LK, cited in Landau, “LK,” p. 221. Staying warm: Cavallon. “It was hell”: In Strokes of Genius. “Stuffed with”: LK, q. in Rose, “American Great,” p. 154. Water pump giving out: Edward Hults. Porch floor: Wilcox. Barn: LK, q. in Namuth, n.p. Tool shed: Wilcox. “The work is endless”: JP to Louis Bunce, June 2, 1946. Mile to Jungle Pete’s: Talmage. Loan for bicycle: Federico, q. in Potter, p. 89. No one saying hello: Edward Hults. Jackson buying paint: Dorothy Miller. Hitching with Levy: Julien Levy, q. in Potter, p. 93. “On the books”: Edward Hults.

  “Strictly business”: Wilcox, although there is testimony that he was also “kind-hearted”; Edward Hults. Spending time in office; “highflown”: Daniel T. Miller, int. by Shorthall, Nov. 9, 1959. Miller was a master in the local Masonic lodge; Bultman. Jackson agreeing; Miller a drinker: Potter, p. 110. Lee going marketing: Dodge. Kadishes urged to come: Kadish. “Let’s get away”: Q. by Reuben Kadish. Not returning until funeral: Kadish. “When can we expect”: JP to Reuben Kadish, Feb. 8, 1946. “Despite Lee”: Charlotte Brooks; James Brooks. “Lee wasn’t feeling well”: Baziotes. Lee’s family banished: Ruth Stein.

  Description of Stella: EFP, q. in Potter, p. 20. “Bad boy”: Jackson. “Pollock had a strong”: Q. in DP&G, “Who was JP?” p. 53. One-night binge: See Bultman, q. in Potter, p. 67. “Holding himself in check”: Wilcox. Lee’s resentment of Stella: Rosenberg: “Lee and I both considered her motherin-law a bore, ignorant—a woman who had nothing to talk about except her five sons and her sewing. She wasn’t fond of Lee either, even though she sewed for her.” Baking pies and cakes: Wilcox. Makeup incident; “speechless”: Rosenberg. Jackson painting again: The last known painting before the move was Water Figure (OC&T 127, I, p. 126), which JP signed and dated “11–45” in the process of packing the studio for the move. Four or five canvases: Wilcox. Size of canvases: We agree with OC&T (I, p. 117) that the large paintings that have traditionally been dated 1945, especially There Were Seven in Eight and Totem Lesson 2, were probably begun in 1944. The Child Proceeds: OC&T 145, I, p. 135. Sun-Scape: OC&T 143, I, p. 136. Circumcision: OC&T 142, I, pp. 134–35; Wilcox for naming.

  “Lee and I”: JP to Louis Bunce, Jan. 5, 1946. “A city person”: Q. in Rodgers, “She Has Been There Once or Twice,” p. 3. Loan refused: Wilcox. “Mrs. Moneybags”: Fleiss. Lee editing manuscript: See Weld, p. 345. Peggy distributing copies: Peggy ”was encouraged in her writing by critic Clement Greenberg to whom she showed each chapter for editing”; Lader, p. 250, citing interview with CG, Mar. 14,
1980. “Could have done better”: LK, q. in Weld, p. 347. Book jacket: Lader, p. 251. JP used motifs from a black and red serigraph Christmas card of 1944 on the front and a photographically reversed black-on-white sketch for the back.

  “Go ask Sam Kootz”: Q. by LK, q. in DP&G, “Who was JP?” p. 50. “I went to see Kootz”: Q. in DP&G, “Who Was JP?” Friedman: Lee said that Kootz said he wouldn’t take JP “because he was a drunk,” indicating that Lee was referring to another appeal to Kootz, or that she fabricated the story. “How could you”: Q by LK, q. in DP&G, “Who Was JP?” Porter, perhaps relying on misinformation from Peggy: “Peggy discussed with me the problem she had one time when Jackson threatened to leave the gallery if she didn’t give him an extra $2,500.” Advice from Davis and Porter: Porter. Visit to Springs: JP to Reuben Kadish, Feb. 8, 1946. “More happy”: LK.