Untitled - Expression no. 2, 1964

Jackson Pollock   Master Artists

Jackson Pollock (American, 1912-1956)

Untitled, CR1093 (after painting Number 9, CR340), 1951–printed 1964.

Screenprint, on Strathmore wove paper, numbered in pencil lower left, and with the Estate of Jackson Pollock 1964 blindstamp lower left.

From the second posthumous printing of 50 authorized by his widow, Lee Krasner in 1964 (there was also a lifetime edition of 25).

Published by Bernard Steffen.

This work evidences Pollock's vital and dynamic approach to his art. Rectangular in shape and developing vertically, this piece appears to show an abstract entity comprising figurative elements that have lost their distinctive traits during the creative process. The abstract compositions in Jackson Pollock’s serigraphs demonstrate his capacity for appropriating parts of the History of Art and transcending them through a language that allows him to overtake the European figurative tradition. But in moving forward, Pollock never leaves anything behind, as confirmed by his colleague and companion Lee Krasner, to whom Pollock confided that he could not stop himself during the creative process, even when an image began to take shape, because his final objective was in fact to cover over any figures.

The traces and trails made by physical bodies become pure, vibrant expression and movement in Jackson Pollock’s Expression no.2. Although indelibly impressed on a support, they seem to retain and transmit the vital energy generated by the artist during the act of creation.

Paul Jackson Pollock (Cody, 1912 – Long Island, 1956) has been one of the most important artists of the XX century. He was the leading force behind the “School of New York” and Abstract Expressionism. During his life, thanks to the professional relationship with Peggy Guggenheim, Pollock gained considerable fame and notoriety. His greatness lies in the development of a radical totally abstract style in the history of contemporary art. He absolutely redefined the painting and drawing techniques, and found new means to describe space. Pollock grew up in California, where he experienced the native American culture. In 1929, he studied at the Students’ League in New York City and worked in the Regionalist style. In the first years of his career, he was influenced also by Mexican muralist painters such as Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, as well as by some Surrealist artworks realized by Joan Miró and Max Ernst. During an important art exhibition held in 1939 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, he saw for the first time artworks by Pablo Picasso, including the famous “Guernica” of 1937. Through this exhibition, he understood the importance and the expressive power of European Modernism. He began realizing compositions with semi-abstract and totemic figures, with ritualistic and obsessive reworking. After his premature death in 1957 in Long Island, Jackson Pollock became one of the most important artists in the world.

“Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is." - Jackson Pollock.

Reference:
"J. Pollock, Black and White", Marlborough Gallery, New York, March 1969.