Jackson Pollock

Abstract Art is art that is not an accurate representation of a form or object. The artist can represent objects in many different ways including the shape, color, and form. The artist takes the object and then either simplifies it or exaggerates it. Abstract Expressionism was the first major art movement that was started in the United States. It began in New York in the 1940’s. Abstract expressionist art, unlike regular abstract art, is more of a study in color and brush stroke. There are two types of Abstract Expressionism Art, color field painting and action painting. Color field painting artists are concerned with colors and shapes, while action artists are more concerned with paint texture and the movements of the artist to create the work.

Paul Jackson Pollock was a major artist in the abstract expressionism era in America. Pollock’s paintings were more about the motivation behind them, and processes that he took to make his pieces of artwork, rather than just the look of them, and this causes there to be deeper meaning when looking at the paintings. Pollock was an action artist. The types of actions Pollock used to make his paints were dripping and pouring the paint to his works.

Jackson Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming. Pollock began to study painting in 1929, at the Art Students League in New York. Pollock’s mentor was Thomas Hart Benton, who was a regionalist painter, but Pollock was also influenced by Mexican muralist painters Orozco, Rivera, and Siqueiros. By the mid 1940’s Pollock was painting completely as an abstract artist. Pollock would put his canvases on the ground to paint, and this way he could literally be “in” his paintings if he walked around them and worked from all four sides of the painting.

Pollock for several years had been undergoing psycho therapy for his depression, and it was thought that his depression was another reason behind his unique style of painting. Pollock would use his whole body to throw and drip paint onto very large canvases that he used for his paintings. This is what gave him the name “Jack the Dipper” and helped him coin the term action painting. Pollock wanted to abandon the European traditional of painting with easel and paintbrushes. European artist had set a standard for painting and Pollock wanted to be able to bring something new to the scene of art and how it was viewed, this is what made him turn away from easels and brushes on canvas.

It is really around 1947 is when all of Pollock’s paintings began to look like action paintings. Before 1947 his paintings are really just abstract paintings. All of Pollock’s paintings however have to be studied to even begin to make sense if they do at all. It is really the names of the paintings that give a person an idea of what to think of them. All abstract art is something that takes imagination to look at. Some of Pollock’s paintings had nothing to do with the look, but everything to do with the methods that Pollock used. The paintings Catheral made in 1947, Full Fzathom Five made in 1947, Painting made in 1948, and Lavendar Mist No1 made in 1950, are all paintings that make absolutely positively no sense what so ever, but if they were to be looked at without a name then they would just be a canvas with paint spilled on them. Pollock really shows his drip painting skills in his Untitled painting made in 1950, and Number 7 made in 1951. All of these paints are just emotion that is displayed on a canvas. There is not a true picture that is created, but the more you look at them and contemplate the names of the paintings, more you start to make a real picture out of them.

Pollock is maybe considered the greatest painter of the Abstract Expressionism art movement. Since this is the first big American Art movement, some people consider him to be the greatest American painter, but there are always going to be critics, so some people do not think he was the greatest American Painter. Unfortunately Pollock was killed in a fatal car crash in 1956, so he could not continue to add to his collection of paintings. Maybe he could have painted more pictures that eventually gave an insight to what he really meant or was feeling when he made his paintings.

When I first looked at the paintings that Pollock made I did not have much to say about them but “is this really art?”, but when I think about the worlds that artist create for themselves to live in, and how they paint those worlds for other people to enjoy, it makes sense that I am not supposed to understand art. Pollock did not make his paints so everyone could understand them, in fact I am probably more than sure he never wanted anyone to really know what his paints meant. Everybody has to make up their own meaning for abstract paintings.





Kramer, Hilton. "Jackson Pollock & the New York School, II." The New Criterion 1702 1999 April 24 2006 .

Pioch, Nicolas. "Abstract Expressionism: Jackson Pollock." The BMW Foundation 1607 2002 April 28 2006 .

Julie Hefferman: Self-Portrait as Dirty Princess with Tail

I went to the Ackland Art museum in Chapel Hill about a week ago. Of course I was lost when I got inside, because I was looking for the 20th and 21st century art pieces. I finally found the areas of the museum that held the art works that I was looking for, but not until after I got some of the free food that was on display. In the 20th century art room on the first floor there was a very interesting 3-dimensional technological computer piece that was made out of key boards and small, maybe three inch, computer screens. There were also other paintings hanging on the walls that looked like I needed to be a deep thinker or a philosopher to understand. As I walked around the room taking in each piece of art work in slowly, I came across the painting that I have posted above. The name of the painting is Self-Portrait as Dirty princess with tail, by Julie Hefferman. This painting was very disturbing, but beautiful at the same time.

When I got back to my room, I looked on the internet for the painting so I could study it longer and better in the comfort of my own room. But to my dismay I could not find the same picture in the museum, so the picture that I have up with my paper is not the exact same as the picture that is hanging in the Ackland Art museum. The picture in the museum is larger, and shows the princess standing in a ball-room. The tail had more animals lying around, and there was a giant dead squid coming from where the tentacles are at the bottom of the picture. The walls of the ballroom in the painting, had paintings on them that were covered by shadows, but one of the paintings on the wall, was a picture of an open fetal pig that is resembles the one that I used in my college biology lab for dissection. The chandelier is not as close to her head as it is in this picture, and the painting is gloomier, but the flowers surrounding the tail are very bright.
Julie Hefferman is an American painter. She went to University of California, at Santa Cruz, C.A. and graduated with a B.F.A. with honors in painting and printmaking. Then she attended Yale School of Art, in New Haven, C.T., and graduated with a M.F.A in painting. All of the Julie Hefferman paintings that come up on the computer look very similar. They are gloomy looking along the outside of the paintings, and the center or main focal points in the paintings are very bright. Most of the paintings titles start off with self-portrait.

I still have not come up with the exact reason of why this painting captured my attention in the museum, but there are things in it that stick out in my mind. The contrast of colors and tones may have been what made me stop and look harder and longer at this picture than others, or maybe the dead animals that surround the tail of the princess and her colors. Most of the time people do not think of death with bright colors. The fetal pig that is in the wall the original painting in the Ackland museum is interesting to me also because I took special interest in the dissection of the pigs when I was in biology lab. The caption on the wall beside the picture from the author, said that the painting represented the destructiveness of the wealthy of the time. So I guess that is what all the dead animals represent in the picture. The wealthy is being represented by the princess, and the tail represents the beauty and power that people had at the time, but also destructiveness and greed of the wealthy at that time.

There were other paintings in the museum that interested me, but none of them compared to the interest that this painting employed in me. The picture is beautiful, but has so much about it that makes it odd. Maybe I like it so much because like me, at first glance I am just like every other person walking around campus, but if anyone bothers to take a closer look at me and what I do and experience on a daily basis then I am similar to the picture. I challenge what is normal, and expected of me and this picture of Self-Portrait as Dirty Princess with Tail challenges what is expected to be seen in the picture.