Inspired by Pollock

"There was a reviewer a while back who wrote that my pictures didn't have any beginning or any end. He didn't mean it as a compliment, but it was. It was a fine compliment. Only he didn't know it." Jackson Pollock.

Nearly all 700 of the works Pollock completed during his lifetime systematically broke auction records  but who really is Jackson Pollock, the American artist who is also known as “Jack the Dripper"? Why do his works continue to inspire contemporary artists?

Jackson Pollock was born on the 28th January 1912, in the city of Cody, Wyoming. Coming from a modest family of Irish and Scottish descent, he frequently moved between Arizona and California depending on his alcoholic father's current job status.

Influenced by his older brothers, Charles and Franck, he followed art trends relatively early and left for New York with them in 1930. In this growing cultural capital he eagerly attended classes by Thomas Hart Benton at the Art Students League of New York, and would go on to use Benton's techniques for the rest of his life.

As a child, Jackson was fascinated by Native American culture, and primitive Indian American art had a lasting effect on him. In the late 1930s he showed a real fascination with Pablo Picasso's cubist work but also the surrealist artist, Miro. These great European masters encouraged Pollock to explore mythological figures in his paintings.

Pollock's meeting with Peggy Guggenheim undoubtedly sparked the beginning of his reputation in the early 1940s. She commissioned him to paint a 240cm x 600cm painting, the result of which would  foreshadow his future large scale works.

In 1945, Pollock moves into a barn in Springs (East Hampton) with Lee Krasner, and his famous dripping and Action Painting period begins. Pollock placed canvases on the floor and across walls, and with the help of large pieces of wood and syringes, launched paint at them from a distance.

This technique gained him recognition on a  global scale, especially after the release of Hans Namuth's film. At the beginning of 1952, he partially abandoned abstract expressionism to return to more figurative subjects.

Jackson Pollock was the father of abstract expressionism, the pioneer of the unconventional and the forbearer of the “all-over". The ability to surpassing the limits of a medium is an undeniable trait of a great artist. Pollock wasn't satisfied with formal drawing techniques so when in search of new methods which would leave a  mark on the history of art forever. In this selection, artists draw inspiration from these methods by altering them, distorting them and celebrating them.

Discover the paintings inspired by Pollock from artists such like Gabriela Lavezzari, Caroline Vis, Tic and many others.