Portraits: Namuth claimed he was prodded into taking these portraits by Edward Steichen who, when shown the earlier shots, had “dismissed the pictures, saying, ‘You know, Namuth, this is not the way to photograph an artist. The nature and personality of such a complex human being are only partially revealed when you show him at work. Spend some time with the man, take pictures of him as he wakes up in the morning, brushes his teeth, talks to his wife, eats breakfast, follow him through his day’”; q. in Namuth, n.p. Namuth’s staged portraits came no closer, of course, than the shots of JP at work to revealing JP’s “complexity.” “His face”: Namuth, n.p. Arranged by Namuth: LK. “A tormented”: Rose, “Hans Namuth’s Photographs … Part One,” p. 112. “Superhuman energy”: Rose, introduction to Namuth, n.p.
Quizzing Little: Little. Quizzing Greenberg: CG. Quizzing Rosenberg: Rosenberg. “Long, complicated”: Q. in Potter, p. 137. References to western lore: See, e.g., Potter, pp. 125, 137. Ridiculing Potter: See, e.g., Potter, pp. 121, 124. Ridiculing Blake: Blake. “Did you ever”: JP, q. by Wilcox. “Stern, serious”: Wilcox. “Then you can pay me”: Q. by Wilcox. It wasn’t until JP took Seligson to the studio and showed him his paintings that Seligson’s blood began to cool. “Now I understand why you did this,” Seligson said (q. by Wilcox), promising not to file a complaint. (He must also have sensed that JP couldn’t possibly have raised the money.) As a parting goodwill gesture, JP offered the bewildered businessman a painting, which Seligson refused. “Assuredness”: LK, q. in Namuth, n.p. “Agonizing”: Little. “A good lay”: Q. by Little. “Chaos, Damn It!”: Time, Nov. 20, 1950, pp. 70–71. Blistering reply: The telegram wasn’t published in “Letters to the Editor” until the Dec. 11, 1950, issue of Time. “It isn’t just me”: Q. in Potter, p. 130.
“Come on, Jackson”: Q. in Friedman, p. 134. Story confirmed by Ohlson. “21 Club”: Ad Reinhardt, q. in Friedman, p. 134. Unceremoniously ejected: Friedman p. 134, citing “An Ad Reinhardt Monologue” (tape recorded by Mary Fuller on April 27, 1966), Artforum, Oct. 1970, pp. 36–41. “Began to dress”: Q. in Vallière, “De Kooning on Pollock,” p. 605. Kitchen implements: Edys Hunter. Canned goods: Kligman. Cuts of meat: Kiesler. “Printed on paper”: JP to Parsons, Oct. 17, 1949. Bocour: Bocour, who insists that beginning in 1952, JP was buying acrylic paints, even though no paintings in the catalogue raisonné are listed as being in this medium. Poker; checks; cabs; tips: Friedman. Lending money: Jackson. “A good poker player”: Heller. “What the hell”: Q. in Friedman, p. 134. “Maybe a Cadillac”: Q. in Friedman, p. 134. “Pathetic cloth coat”: Ossorio, q. in DP&G, ”Who Was JP?” p. 58. “How he should invest”: Vita Peterson. “Lamentable”: Ossorio. “Certainly in those days it was a question of buying materials. The Pollocks lived up to the limit”; Ossorio, q. in DP&G, ”Who Was JP?” p. 58.
Parsons knew of extravagance: Parsons, int. by Shorthall, Nov. 9, 1959. Checks of $3,174.89; sales of $4,750: Monica at Parsons Gallery to LK, Mar. 7, 1951. June amounts: JP, handwritten addendum to Monica to LK, Mar. 7, 1951. Number 8, 1949: OC&T 259, II, p. 61. Kootz’s harping: Friedman, p. 142, Average wages and costs: Bill Smith, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Figures for 1950: A production worker in manufacturing made $56.53 a week; a bookkeeper in Atlanta made $65 a week; the cost of a new house averaged $10,905. Kitchen appliances: Edys Hunter. Dental services: Ferber. Offer for Lucifer: Parsons to JP, June 15, 1950. “I’m very fond”: JP to Parsons, n.d.; inaccurately dated 1949 in OC&T IV, p. 245. “I am going to try”: JP to Parsons, n.d. “I want, as you know”: Parsons to JP, June 25, 1950. Parsons strapped: “As you realize, my financial situation is no better than yours. I am continually in debt”; Parsons to JP, June 25, 1950. “Extravagant”; “rent-free”: Int. by Shorthall, Nov. 9, 1959. Dating of renovations: SMP to CCP, Jan. 10, 1949. Loper: Hults; see Potter, p. 180. “If you ran”; “If we’d had a strong wind”: Hults.
Following summer: Talmage: LK, q. in Liss, “Memories of Bonac Painters.” Begonias and ferns: Myers, p. 104. Cold water and coal stoves: Glueck, “Krasner and Pollock,” p. 60. Hults and Talmage: Hults. Working cheap: Talmage. Payment: Hults. Hults and the real estate agent. Ed Cook, sent JP an old ink-splattered blotter that reminded them of Jackson’s paintings. “Jackson thought so much of it that he had it framed,” Hults recalls, “and hung it in his kitchen for a few years. He got the biggest charge out of that.”
Work on studio: See SMP to CCP, Jan. 10, 1949. Water line; paint mixer: Hults. Fluorescent lights: Harris, int. by Shorthall, Nov. 9, 1959. Negotiating and supervising: Hults, q. in Potter, p. 107. Art transactions left to Lee: Significantly, the details of sales were communicated, not by Parsons to JP, but by Parsons’s gallery assistant, M. L. Monica, to Lee Krasner; Monica to LK, Mar. 15, 1951. Plants: “There was one very tall vase in the living room into which Lee put a single gigantic sunflower every summer. In the fall she combed the fields for flowers to dry. In the bay window was her indoor garden of magnificent hanging pots of begonias, ferns (the more exotic the better), Canary Island ivy, fuchsias, spider plants. On the floor below were spread stones picked up along the seashore, and on these were placed more pots of plants”; Myers, p. 104.
Garden and lawn: LK, q. in DP&G, ”Who Was JP?” p. 51; Mr. and Mrs. Richard Talmage, int. by Shorthall, Nov. 9, 1959. Pump: Mr. and Mrs. Richard Talmage, int. by Shorthall, Nov. 9, 1959. “He wanted to build”: Q. in DP&G, ”Who Was JP?” p. 53. “She couldn’t sleep”: Q. by Cook. Repainting: Wilcox. Colors: Kligman. Search for acquisitions: Little. Twin beds: Kligman. Date car purchased: SMP to CCP, Oct. 1950. Cadillac: Acquired in exchange for a painting; Dan Miller, q. in Vallière, “Daniel T. Miller,” p. 41.“Oh, how he gloried”: Q. in Potter, p. 144. Description of Cadillac: Potter, p. 144.
38. A CLAM WITHOUT A SHELL
SOURCES
Books, articles, documents, and transcripts
Barrett, The Truants; THB, An Artist in America; Burroughs, THB; Friedman, JP; Gruen, The Party’s Over Now; Kunitz, ed., Twentieth Century Authors; Namuth, Pollock Painting; Nemser, Art Talk; Potter, To a Violent Grave; Rose, LK; Sandler, The New York School; Solomon, JP.
Robert Alan Aurthur, “Hitting the Boiling Point, Freakwise, at East Hampton,” Esquire, June 1972; Barbara Cavaliere, “An Interview with LK,” Flash Art, Jan.–Feb. 1980; Barbara Cavaliere and Richard C. Hobbs, “Against a Newer Laocoön,” Arts, Apr. 1977; “Chaos, Damn It!” Time, Nov. 20, 1950; “Charles Pollock in Conversation with Terence Maloon, Peter Rippon, and Sylvia Pollock,” Artscribe, Sept. 1977; 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, June 10, 1944; CG, “Art,” Nation, June 9, 1945; CG, “Avant-Garde and Kitsch,” Partisan Review, Fall 1939; CG, “The Present Prospects of American Painting and Sculpture,” Horizon, Oct. 1947; CG, “Towards a Newer Laocoön,” Partisan Review, July–Aug. 1940; Robert Hughes, “Arrogant Intrusion,” Time, Sept. 30, 1974; Max Kozloff, “The Critical Reception of Abstract Expressionism,” Arts, Dec. 1965; Max Kozloff, “An Interview with Robert Motherwell,” Artforum, Sept. 1965; Rosalind Krauss, “Changing the Work of David Smith,” Art in America, Sept.–Oct. 1974; “Letters” (from Joseph W. Henderson and Rosalind Krauss), Art in America, Mar.–Apr. 1975; “Letters to the Editors,” Life, Aug. 29, 1949; JP, “Letters to the Editor,” Time, Dec. 11, 1950; Barbara M. Reise, “Greenberg and The Group: A Retrospective View, Part 1,” Studio International, May 1968; Irving Sandler, “The Club,” Artforum, Sept. 1965; James T. Vallière, “De Kooning on Pollock,” Partisan Review, Fall 1967.
Hal Burston, “JP: He Paints as He Pleases,” Long Island Newsday, Dec. I, 1950; Barbara DeLatiner, “LK: Beyond Pollock,” NYT, Aug. 8, 1981; Michael Kernan, “LK, Out of Pollock’s Shadow,” Washington Post, Oct. 23, 1983; Hilton Kramer, “Altering of Smith Work Stirs Dispute,” NYT, Sept. 13, 1974; Hilton Kramer, “Questions Raised by Art Alterations,” NYT, Sept. 14, 1974; Hilton Kramer, “Sculpture Reproduction, a Rising Battle,” NYT,
Oct. 21, 1974; Vivien Raynor, “JP in Retrospect—‘He Broke the Ice,’” NYT Magazine, Apr. 2, 1967; Amei Wallach, “LK: Angry Artist,” Long Island Newsday, Nov. 12, 1973.
Motherwell Archives, AAA.
CG, int. by James T. Vallière, Mar. 20, 1968, AAA; Barnett Newman, int. by Kathleen Shorthall of Life, Nov. 9, 1959, Time/Life Archives.
Interviews
Lawrence Alloway; Ruth Ann Applehof; Ethel Baziotes; Peter Blake; Norman Bluhm; Leonard Bocour; Paul Brach; James Brooks; Jeremy Capillé; Nicholas Carone; Giorgio Cavallon; Herman Cherry; Edward Cook; Gene Davis; Violet de Laszlo; Dorothy Dehner; Karen Del Pilar; Dane Dixon; Ted Dragon; Jimmy Ernst; Herbert Ferber; Phyllis Fleiss; B. H. Friedman; Jane Graves; CG; Grace Hartigan; Ben Heller; Edward Hults; Ted Hults; Edys Hunter; Sam Hunter; Harry Jackson; Buffie Johnson; Reuben Kadish; Nathaniel Kaz; Lillian Olaney Kiesler; Stewart Klonis; Hilton Kramer; LK; Ernestine Lassaw; Ibram Lassaw; John Lee; Harold Lehman; Joe Liss; John Little; Cile Downs Lord; Beatrice Ribak Mandelman; Conrad Marca-Relli; Mercedes Matter; ACM; Jason McCoy; George Mercer; Mrs. George Mercer; Hans Namuth; Alfonso Ossorio; Philip Pavia; Vita Peterson; ABP; CCP; EFP; FLP; Jonathan Pollock; MJP; MLP; SWP; David Porter; Becky Reis; May Tabak Rosenberg; Irving Sandler; Miriam Schapiro; Jon Schueler; Carol Southern; Hedda Sterne; Jock Truman; Esteban Vicente; Harriet Vicente; Helen Wheelwright; Roger Wilcox; Betsy Zogbaum.
NOTES
Description of dump: Ted Hults. Going to dump: CG. JP apparently liked to go to the dump and sit and think and enjoy the view: Potter (p. 108) saw him there alone, sitting on the running board of his Model A, staring at the garbage. Jackson terrified: Parsons, q. in Friedman, p. 180: “He was either bored or terrified of society.” See Brooks, q. in Potter, p. 114. “Wanted to crawl”: Edward Hults. “Clam without a shell”: Q. by CG; q. by LK, q. in Friedman, p. 140; q. by Penny Potter, in Potter, p. 114. “Didn’t see the man”: CG. “As if his skin”: Penny Potter, q. in Potter, p. 156. “Top of the heap”: Q. in Potter, p. 114. “A terrible nightmare”: Q. by Sam Hunter. Yale refusing mural: Potter, p. 76. “Parsons must be nuts”: In AAA. Letters: “Letters to the Editors,” p. 9: child, Mrs. F. D. O’Sullivan, Jr.; garage door, P. B. Perrault; “at the rate,” Preston W. Angell. “Bucket of paint”: Burston, “JP”
“The decorative qualities”: Q. by Ossoria. Valentin’s assessment: Valentin, q. by Parsons, q. in Potter, p. 91. “You don’t really”: Q. by friend, name withheld by request. “Let’s wait”: Shawn, q. by Roueché, q. in Potter, p. 127. “A piece of junk”: Q. by Cavallon. Liss resisting pleas: Joe Liss. Klonis: Executive Director from 1947 to 1980. Klonis: When Pollock donated a painting for a charity auction at the Art Students League, the painting fetched very little. Bocour refusing trade: Bocour. “Maidstone Club friends”: Q. in Potter, p. 90.
Obscurity and odd jobs: Sandler: Philip Pearlstein painted a picture in exchange for a $15 recording of The Magic Flute. “That wildman”: Carone. “The freak”: Q. by friend, name withheld by request. “Irrelevant”: Hans Hofmann, q. by CG. “Embittered”: Kiesler. “Brash and heartless”: Hofmann, q. by Schueler. Marsh; Burlington show: Klonis. “He’s a follower”: Name withheld by request. Craven’s accusation: Burroughs, p. 118. Benton’s accusation: JP (p. 317) “began pouring paint out of cans and buckets just to see what would happen.” “Nonartist”: Guston, q. by Carone. “Bragging that Jackson”: Berton Roueché, q. in Potter, p. 127. “Within five years”: Aurthur, “Hitting the Boiling Point,” p. 200. Rethinking of Motherwell’s ambitions: Aurthur, “Hitting the Boiling Point,” p. 200: “Just about when the five years were up, and it was clear that Pollock would make it, Motherwell, having to settle for a little less, abandoned his Pierre Chareau-designed Quonset hut in East Hampton and departed forever.” Something to fight about: Rosenberg. Jack Tworkov, q. by Brach: ”The art world is a long line waiting to get through a narrow doorway. Most people die while still on line.”
“I never met”; “pantspresser”; “boring”: CG. “Tedious beyond belief”: Q. in Gruen, p. 182. Move from literary criticism: Greenberg began writing regular art reviews for the Nation in 1941, but he had written on art before, in 1939 and 1940, notably, in the Partisan Review (“Avant-Garde and Kitsch” and “Towards a Newer Laocoön”). He became the Nation’s regular art critic in 1944, although he also continued to write literary criticism; see Kunitz, ed., p. 387. “Extreme eclecticism”: CG, “Art,” June 10, 1944, p. 689. New critical agenda: In 1945, Greenberg castigated the lyrical tendency of abstract painters in “New Metamorphism,” a show at Howard Putzel’s short-lived Gallery 57. In the Nation (June 9, 1945, p. 657), Greenberg decried the “return of elements of representation, smudged contour lines and the third dimension.” He urged (p. 658) the artist to explore “the means of his art in order to produce his new subject matter,” not to “hunt about for new ‘ideas’ under which to cover up the failure to develop his means.” War against Surrealists: Reise, “Greenberg and The Group … Part 1,” p. 256: “Greenberg did not like the Surrealists, who were French, differently-styled Marxists, Freudian-oriented, and concerned with ‘content’; his aversion was so strong that he seldom mentioned their presence in New York in his accounts of immigrant artists.” “‘Outside’ subject matter”: CG, “Avant-Garde and Kitsch,” p. 49 n. 2. “Confus[ing] literature”: CG, ”Towards a Newer Laocoön,” p. 309. “Ferocious Struggle”; “[the artist’s] isolation”: CG, ”The Present Prospects of American Painting and Sculpture,” p. 30.
“Interesting experiment”: Barrett p. 136. “Child prodigy”: CG. Treating artists as children: Kozloff (“The Critical Reception of Abstract Expressionism,” p. 30) called his work “both self-contradictory and authoritarian.” Ignoring artists: See Cavaliere and Hobbs, “Against a Newer Laocoön,” p. 114. Paintings forced to conform: Cavaliere and Hobbs, “Against a Newer Laocoön,” p. 115: “Most of Greenberg’s criticism is prescriptive. He assumes the role of coach. Standing on the sidelines he urges his favorites on to further tests. Rather than dealing with each painting individually and assessing their paintings in light of their intentions, he programmatically evaluates them according to his own standards and tries to persuade them to follow his own theories.” “Like an impatient”: Davis. “That one’s a mistake!”: Q. by Friedman. “Lead from his strength”: CG. What you should do”: Q. by Zogbaum: “Sam Kootz was putting on a show of eleven unknowns and Clement Greenberg was chosen to go down and pick out something from Kline. Those were the ones he chose.” “Smith was no colorist”: CG. See Hughes, “Arrogant Intrusion,” p. 73; Kramer, “Altering of Smith Work Stirs Dispute”; Kramer, “Questions Raised by Art Alterations”; Kramer, “Sculpture Reproduction”; Krauss, “Changing the Work of David Smith,” pp. 30–34; “Letters” (from Joseph W. Henderson and Krauss), p. 136. Dehner: “I was furious! I felt as bad as if somebody had painted out half of the Sistine Chapel. I just thought it was an outrageous act of arrogance.” Although Greenberg couldn’t compel obedience, he was quick to punish those, like Little, who defied him: “He came to my second show at Betty Parsons and made a show of standing in the door. He didn’t come in, he just looked around quickly, then turned and left. Of course, everybody noticed.”
“Grand pooh-bah”: Wheelwright: “He became the big pooh-bah. He was the one to whom everybody kowtowed. Whatever Clem said, that was the word of God.” “Pope Clement”: Marca-Relli. “God”: Kiesler. “Making sweaters”: Bluhm. “A priest class”: Pavia. “Looked with their ears”: Heller. “Manufactured artists”: Q. in Gruen, p. 259; Gottlieb says this about Barnett Newman. Wheelwright believes Greenberg (“the devil!”) destroyed her first husband, artist Paul Feeley. Hofmann, q. by Mrs. George Mercer: “It takes three things to make a success in the art world. The first is good press. The second is a good critic. The third is talent. In that order.”
The Club: See the definitive article on the Club, Sandler, “The Club,” pp. 27–31. Lassaw’s studio: Actually, 487 Sixth Avenue. Twenty artists: For a complete list, see Sandler, “The Club,
” p. 27. Address of loft; unable to agree on name: Vallière, “De Kooning on Pollock,” p. 604. In arguing for an artists’ club, Marca-Relli was inspired by his memory of a club in Rome: “They had a beautiful building, with a restaurant on the first floor, and were always hosting lunches and dinners. I thought, Jesus Christ, how do the Europeans manage these things? When I came back to New York I mentioned it many times. The idea was already in the air. Of course, I hoped we would do it with real style, but we didn’t.” “Escape the loneliness”: Sandler, “The Club,” p. 29. Sam Johnson’s: Friedman, p. 108. Other cafés: Sandler, “The Club,” p. 27. Address of Waldorf: Friedman, p. 108. “Village bums”; food better elsewhere: Sandler, “The Club,” p. 27. Lewitin; Kaldis: Mercedes Matter. Graham: Pavia, q. in Gruen, p. 268. Joint experience on work projects: Friedman, p. 108. “Reinhardt would say”: Q. in Gruen, p. 269. “Puritans”; “the hygienic school”: Pavia, q. in Gruen, p. 269, “Decorative”: Kadish.
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