One of the cruel ironies of Pollock’s career is that his death created a demand for his work. Only a few weeks after the funeral Alfred Barr telephoned Sidney Janis to say that the Museum of Modern Art, which previously had been unable to raise $8000 to purchase Autumn Rhythm, now wanted to buy the painting. Janis told Barr he would get back to him. He conferred with Lee, who insisted that the price be raised to $30,000. Barr was livid when he heard the news and gave up any hope of acquiring Autumn Rhythm. But the Metropolitan bought it immediately, establishing a new price range for Pollock—and for his contemporaries. As a result of the sale, Janis explained, “we had a little less trouble selling a de Kooning for $10,000 than we had a month earlier trying to sell one for $5000.”
The prices continued to rise over the years to levels that astounded everyone. By the 1980s a millionaire artist such as Andy Warhol could say jokingly about his dead colleague, “I wish I had as much money as Jackson Pollock.”
Besides managing the business side of Pollock’s career, Lee made herself available to virtually anyone who was interested in Pollock’s work. She granted dozens of interviews to graduate students, professors, and journalists, and much of her time was taken up with explicating her husband’s career. No matter how many times she was asked the same questions, she answered good-naturedly, and she seemed to enjoy recalling the details of her life with Pollock. Looking back, she was likely to remember the good times. “There were many happy moments,” she once said. “I remember any one of them. I remember sitting with Jackson on our country porch—sitting there for hours, looking into the landscape, and always at dusk, when the woods ahead turned into strange, mystifying shapes. And we would walk in those woods, and he would stop to examine this or that stone, branch, or leaf. . . . His moodiness and depression would vanish, and he would be calm—and there would often be laughter. I remember Jackson’s laughter. It was wonderfully outgoing, it was warm, and there was such joy in it.”
As Lee grew older she became sick and took to spending most of her time by herself in her apartment on East Seventy-ninth Street. She suffered from crippling arthritis, which made it difficult for her to walk. She could hardly paint because of the pain in her hands. As the illness worsened she had to use a wheelchair and could sometimes be spotted in Central Park being wheeled by one of her nurses.
One consolation was that the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and the Museum of Modern Art in New York jointly organized her first major retrospective in 1984. Lee traveled to Houston that October for the opening of the show. Friends agreed that she was delighted by the exhibition, although those who tried to congratulate her were invariably rebuffed. “Too bad it’s thirty years too late!” she’d say.
After returning from Houston, Lee took to her bed and never painted again. But even in sickness she remained as interested as ever in the goings-on of the art world. She often had her assistant, Darby Cardonsky, sit by her side and read her art reviews from newspapers and magazines.
Lee died at New York Hospital on June 20,1984, at the age of seventy-five. Her death certificate does not specify what she died of beyond “natural causes.”
She left behind an estate valued at twenty million dollars. Most of the money was to be given away. Her will authorized her executors to establish a foundation to assist “needy and worthy artists.”
Lee didn’t leave any burial instructions, but her relatives knew what she wanted. While visiting Pollock’s grave with a nephew a few years earlier, Lee had admired a small boulder lying at the edge of the woods. That stone now marks her grave. An ordinary rock, it rises but a foot off the ground and is barely noticeable beside the huge stone on Pollock’s grave. Even in death Lee continues to enhance Pollock’s stature.
NOTES
Pollock’s personal papers can be found at the Archives of American Art, a division of the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, DC. These papers include letters to him, copies of his own letters, photographs, reviews of his exhibitions, medical records, and various other documents, and are referred to in the notes as “Pollock Archive.”
If the source of a quotation is not cited, it is from an interview with the author.
Pollock’s letters remain in private hands unless otherwise noted.
Chapter One: Origins
16.
“Great Grand Pa Boyd:” letter from Stella Pollock to her cousin Irene Crippen, n.d.
17.
“Word has been received”: The Tingley (Iowa) Vindicator, Jan. 29, 1903, p. 2.
20.
“A fine son”: The Park County (Wyoming) Enterprise, Jan. 31, 1921, p. 5.
20.
“He’s my baby”: interview with Frank Pollock, July 1983.
21.
“Mrs. L. R. Pollock and five sons”: The Park County (Wyoming) Enterprise, Nov. 16, 1912, p. 5.
22.
In September 1913, with a down payment of ten dollars, LeRoy purchased: land deed document, Maricopa County, AZ.
23.
“One day we’ll own”: Frank Pollock interview.
23.
“I wish we were all back in the country”: letter from LeRoy Pollock to Frank Pollock, July 12, 1931.
24.
“will leave a gap in our lives”: letter from Sande Pollock to JP and others, n.d.
25.
“He’s entitled to it”: Frank Pollock interview.
25.
“the sweetest guy”: unpublished interview with Sanford (Sande) McCoy by Kathleen Shorthall of Life magazine, Nov. 2, 1959. (Note: In the forties Pollock’s brother Sande changed his last name to McCoy, the name of their father before his adoption by the Pollock family. Both names are used here.)
26.
In January 1918 . . . LeRoy sold his Phoenix farm: land deed document, Maricopa County, AZ.
27.
he purchased an eighteen-acre fruit farm in Chico: land deed document, Butte County, CA.
27.
“Stay away from Dad”: Frank Pollock interview.
28.
In January 1920 LeRoy acquired the Diamond Mountain Inn: land deed document, Lassen County, CA.
30.
“He was wearing spats”: Frank Pollock interview.
30.
“Charles started this whole damn thing”: Sande McCoy to Shorthall.
30.
“I want to be an artist like brother Charles”: Undated article in the scrapbook of Irene Crippen of Des Moines, Iowa (Stella’s cousin). She believes the article is from the Des Moines Register c. 1958.
31.
Stella sold the Orland property in January 1923: land deed document, Glenn County, CA.
32.
“His grades weren’t passing”: Sande McCoy to Shorthall.
33.
“a bag of beans”: ibid.
33.
Jackson was playing in the barnyard: interview with Frank Pollock and Marvin Jay Pollock, July 1983.
34.
“Goddamn son of a bitch”: Sande McCoy to Shorthall.
35.
“It’s just a goddamn dog”: Frank Pollock interview.
35.
“I am sorry”: letter from LeRoy Pollock to JP, Dec. 11, 1927, in Francis V. O’Connor and Eugene V. Thaw, eds., Jackson Pollock: A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings, Drawings and Other Works, 4 vols. (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1978), Vol. 4, pp. 205–06 (hereafter cited as Catalogue Raisonné).
Chapter Two: Manual Arts High School
37.
“boresome” place of “rules and ringing bells”: letter from JP to Charles Pollock, Jan. 31, 1930, Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. 4, p. 209.
38.
“I’m going to make serious painters of you”: interview with Manuel Tolegian, July 1983.
38.
“We are very fortunate”: letter from JP to his brothers, Oct. 22, 1929, Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. 4, p. 208.
38.
“a style associated”: telephone interview with Reuben Kadish, 1984.
38.
“my letters are undoubtedly”: letter from JP to Charles Pollock, Jan. 31, 1930.
38.
“an immature person”: interview with Harold Lehman, 1984.
38.
“That fellow thought”: Tolegian interview.
39.
“doubtful of any ability”: letter from JP to Charles Pollock, Jan. 31, 1930.
39.
“If you had seen his early work”: unpublished interview with Sanford (Sande) McCoy by Kathleen Shorthall, of Life magazine, Nov. 2, 1959.
40.
“You think that’s original?”: Tolegian interview.
41.
“more at ease with a rock”: ibid.
41.
“I think your philosophy”: letter from LeRoy Pollock to JP, Sept. 19, 1928, Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. 4, p. 206.
41.
“I have dropped religion”: letter from JP to his brothers, Oct. 22, 1929.
42.
One morning, a few hours before school began: Tolegian interview.
43.
“I certainly admire”: letter from JP to his brothers, Oct. 22, 1929.
43.
“I have thought of going”: ibid.
43.
“ousted” from school: ibid.
43.
“although i feel i will make”: letter from JP to Charles Pollock, Jan. 31, 1930.
44.
“He was extremely shy”: Tolegian interview.
44.
“happy as a little kid”: interview with Berthe Pacifico Laxineta, Oct. 1983.
45.
“I didn’t even hear you”: ibid.
47.
“to sculpt like Michelangelo”: Tony Smith to James Valliere, unpublished interview, Aug. 1965, Pollock Archive.
Chapter Three: Art Students League
49.
“immediate sympathy”: Thomas Hart Benton, An Artist in America (Columbia, MO: Univ. of Missouri Press, 1968), p. 332.
49.
“I’m damn grateful”: “Unframed Space,” The New Yorker, Aug. 5, 1950, p. 16.
49.
“scented dudes”: Benton interview, Art Digest, Dec. 1, 1930, p. 36.
49.
“What the hell”: unpublished interview with Paul Cummings, for the Archives of American Art, July 1973.
49.
“It is absurd”: quoted in his obituary in The New York Times, Jan. 21, 1975, p. 23.
50.
“were mad . . . prophet”: Benton, An Artist in America, p. 248.
51.
“I improved my brand”: ibid, p. 249.
51.
“Benton is beginning to be recognized”: letter from JP to his father, Feb. 3, 1933, Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. 4, p. 214.
52.
“give you a quick look”: telephone interview with Reginald Wilson, 1984.
52.
“hurrying down the corridor”: interview with Will Barnet, 1984.
52.
“Why couldn’t that nice young man”: interview with Frances Avery, 1984.
52.
“He couldn’t draw”: interview with Yvonne McKinney, 1984.
52.
“jittery hands”: interview with Joe Delaney, 1984.
52.
“seemed . . . minimal order”: Benton, An Artist in America, p. 332.
53.
“He got things out of proportion”: rough draft of a letter from Thomas Hart Benton to Francis V. O’Connor, 1964 (hereafter cited as “Benton notes”).
53.
“A good seventy years more”: letter from JP to LeRoy Pollock, n.d., Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. 4, p. 212.
53.
“I have much to learn”: letter from JP to Stella Pollock, n.d., Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. 4, p. 213.
53.
Charles tried his hardest: interviews with Charles and Frank Pollock, 1983–84.
54.
“He was trying to impress”: interview with Marie Leavitt Pollock, 1983.
54.
“I’ll go get them”: interview with Nathaniel Kaz, 1984.
55.
“As kids we ate chicken and pork”: Frank Pollock interview.
55.
Rita sent biscuits and cream: interview with Manuel Tolegian, 1983.
55.
“a sense of ineptitude”: Benton notes.
55.
“I had a model there”: unpublished interview with Paul Cummings, July 1973.
56.
“Pollock volunteered”: interview with Harry Holtzman, Dec. 1983.
58.
“Run faster”: Tolegian interview.
58.
“The miners and prostitutes”: letter from JP to Charles and Frank Pollock, n.d., Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. 4, p. 210.
59.
“I would have been worried sick”: letter from Stella Pollock to Charles and Frank Pollock, n.d., Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. 4, p. 210.
59.
“sure hard work”: letter from Stella Pollock to Frank Pollock, n.d.
59.
“That’s all I had to say”: Tolegian interview.
59.
“damned little left”: letter from JP to Charles Pollock, n.d., Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. 4, p. 211.
60.
“That lunchroom was crazy”: interview with Philip Pavia, 1984.
61.
“What do we need those Europeans for?”: Tolegian interview.
61.
“Pollock was posing”: interview with Whitney Darrow, Jr., 1984.
61.
“heard Thomas Craven lecture”: Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. 4, p. 213.
61.
“All Pollock does”: quoted in Polly Burroughs, Thomas Hart Benton: A Portrait (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1981), p. 118.
62.
“And when I say artist”: letter from JP to his father, n.d., Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. 4, p. 212.
62.
“What the hell”: Tolegian interview.
62.
“You wait”: interview with Peter Busa, July 1984.
63.
“We have a substitute”: Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. 4, p. 215.
64.
“So far”: ibid.
64.
“I like it better”: letter from JP to his mother, March 25,1933, Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. 4, p. 217.
64.
“Well Dad by god”: letter from JP to his father, Feb. 3, 1933.
64.
“I am so sorry”: letter from Stella Pollock to JP and others, n.d., Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. 4, p. 216.
65.
“I always feel”: letter from JP to his mother, March 25, 1933.
Chapter Four: Life with the Bentons
66.
lit with blue bulbs: interview with Frances Avery, 1984.
66.
“Jackson adored my mother”: telephone interview with Jessie Benton Lyman, 1984.
67.
“Jack must have told him”: Benton notes; see also Benton, An Artist in America (Columbia, MO: Univ. of Missouri Press, 1968), p. 339.
68.
“My mother talked”: telephone interview with Thomas P. Benton, 1985.
68.
With the first few sounds: Polly Burroughs, Thomas Hart Benton: A Portrait (New York: Doubleday, 1981), p. 119.
68.
“Jack tried to play”: Benton notes.
69.
“Clean up”: telephone interview with Elizabeth Pollock, 1984.
70.
“I am inclined to believe”: Benton notes.
71.
“Overnight the Helen Marot I had known”: Sketches from Life: The Autobiography of Lewis Mumford (New York: Dial Press, 1982), p. 247.
72.
“I felt so sorry”: letter from Stella Pollock to JP and his brothers, Aug. 30, 1934.
72.
“34 cents in my pocket”: unpublished interview with Sanford (Sande) McC
oy by Kathleen Shorthall, of Life magazine, Nov. 2, 1959.
73.
“Much as Jackson”: ibid.
73.
“Jack was a very proud . . . young man”: letter from Rita Benton to Francis V. O’Connor, 1964. Quoted in O’Connor’s unpublished dissertation, The Genesis of Jackson Pollock: 1912 to 1943. Submitted to Johns Hopkins in 1965.
74.
“most beautiful”: ibid.
74.
“Mrs. T. H. Benton Collection”: The New York Times, Dec. 1,1934, p. 11.
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