Jackson Pollock

by Steven Naifeh

  Description of Cooter: Photo in The Orange and Green: 1928. Joint activities in Riverside: Robert Cooter. Description of Leon Cooter: Clare Cooter. Date car acquired: Robert Cooter: They had the car by 1926 and could not have had it before Sande’s sixteenth birthday in 1925. Description of car: Robert Cooter; FLP: The tires were called cornhuskers because they were manufactured in Nebraska. Livery stable: Robert Cooter. Fields of filaree: Patterson, p. 36. Weekend trips; tobacco: FLP. Quail; deer: Robert Cooter. Respite from heat and dust: FLP. Edge of Wrightwood: Robert Cooter: The ridge is called Sulfur Slide. Lone Pine Canyon Road camp: Robert Cooter. “Tent-shacks”: Robert Cooter; Conaway, p. 135. Work of road crews: Robert Cooter. Pitching tent: Conaway, p. 135. Eating with workers: Robert Cooter. Stove: Robert Cooter; McCoy, p. 136.

  Little known of Roy: Neither the federal road-building authorities nor the state agencies bothered to preserve employment records from the twenties. Roy foreman: Robert Cooter. Cabin: FLP; Archbold. The camp had to exist by the spring of 1927 because that is when the Pollocks had to sell it to pay the hospital charges for Sande’s appendicitis. Digging space for car: FLP. Roy at cabin: MLP. Roy visiting on holidays: Robert Cooter: JP, Sande, and their father “didn’t do things together. He didn’t go on camping trips with us. He never was home enough. We seen him at the road camp more than we ever saw him at home and he’d only be home on Thanksgiving and Christmas”; confirmed by FLP.

  Meeting men on Roy’s crew: Robert Cooter. Description of Louis Jay: FLP. Jay working with Roy before: Robert Cooter. Jay visiting Pollock home: FLP. Spinning tales: Conaway, p. 156. Jay smoking pipe: Conaway, p. 137. Fred Wiese a Texan: Robert Cooter. Description of Jay and Wiese: Photos in possession of ACM. Jay and Wiese going to Grand Canyon; Jackson and Sande going to Bryce National Monument: Robert Cooter. The monument was created in 1923, the national park in 1928. Exploring Zion Canyon: Robert Cooter. Zion National Park was established in 1919. Markagunt Plateau; trip to Kaibab; “reclining mountain”; mustang hunt; introduced to “Red”; “better than an Indian”: Robert Cooter. “How’d you guys”: Red, q. by Robert Cooter. “Processing”: Robert Cooter.

  Jackson graduating from Grant: Grant Elementary School records, 1926–27. Two family moves: An address of 1194 North Street appears on JP’s school records from Manual Training School, indicating that the family had moved by September of 1926. The Pollocks rented the house at 4138 Mulberry for a short period prior to September 1926 and then moved to 3184 North Street (a later renumbering) by the beginning of the school year. Both the Mulberry Street and the North Street houses were destroyed when California State Route 91 was built; FLP; Cultural Heritage Board Item, Sept. 15, 1982. “Soccer ball”: Robert Cooter.

  Description of Sande: ACM. Sande finding “girlfriend”: FLP. Sande a “ladies’ man”: Crowell. Still a small town: Robert Cooter. Conservative Calvinist: Moses. “Kissing and petting”: Robert Cooter. D Street in San Bernardino: FLP. “Weenie bakes”; “button, button”; Sande “was never without a girl”; Jackson “puttering” and drawing; continuing to see Leon: Robert Cooter. Never dating: FLP: “I don’t remember him [Jackson] ever with a girl in Riverside.” Description of Arloie: Photo in Polytechnic High School, Riverside, Calif., p. 26. “Made you want”: Robert Cooter. Sande watching Arloie; Cooter telling Sande about joint date: Robert Cooter. Arloie: Also called Loie; ACM. Jack and Sande passing Conaway home; trips with Arloie to mountains; Jackson staying home; drawing: Robert Cooter. Putting Gyp to sleep: FLP. Sande collapsing during run: Robert Cooter. No one calling Arloie: ACM. Cabin sold: FLP; Robert Cooter. Roy arranging jobs: FLP. Trip to Grand Canyon: ACM; SLM, int. by Shorthall, 1959. Seeing wheel roll by: FLP; ACM.

  “He always talked about it”: LK: “I do remember he [Jackson] described that trip to the North Rim with fondness.” “Reconnaissance truck”: SLM, int, by Shorthall, 1959. Jackson with main party: FLP. Transit man: The transit man manipulated the repeating theodolite, also called the American transit, a device for measuring horizontal and vertical angles. Chain man: The chain man handled the Gunter’s chain, a 66-foot chain made up of 100 links or short sections of wire connected to the next link by a loop; 80 chains equaled 1 mile; the Gunter’s chain has since been largely replaced by the steel tape.

  Roy on different crew: FLP. Calabash pipes: Photos in possession of FLP and ACM. Robert Cooter: Louis Jay smoked a pipe. Louis Jay’s fondness for Pollock boys: FLP. “Chemical vulnerability”: See Fox, “Treatment of Chronic Alcoholism,” in Merritt and Kolb, eds., p. 808. Dr. Fox—one of the country’s preeminent authorities on alcoholism—was briefly JP’s own physician during the 1950s. Friends noting Jackson’s lack of tolerance for alcohol: Rosenberg, etc. Road workers amused: Araks Tolegian, recalling Manuel. Most sources have isolated the trip to the Grand Canyon as the start of JP’s drinking problem; see OC&T IV, p. 205, and Friedman, p. 7. CCP: “Jackson had been drinking since he was fifteen. He started on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.” It is likely that JP was drinking before this, and certainly Sande was. As for Louis Jay’s role, Frank disagrees that he was in any way “responsible.”

  Hatchet accident: ACM. Possibility of broken bone: ACM: She wasn’t sure if JP’s leg was broken, but if it was, he wouldn’t have been able to come home as he did. Walking to Riverside High: Robert Cooter. Furniture: JP made a lamp and Sande a table, both now in possession of ACM. Reputations as roughnecks: ACM. “The Gold Dust Twins”; Jackson no longer invited: Robert Cooter. Jackson’s grades falling: Grant Elementary School Records, 1926–27. Slipping further: SLM, int. by Shorthall, 1959. Size of high school: There were 1,115 students in the 1927–28 school year. School sports relatively brutal: Robert Cooter. Sports or ROTC: FLP. ROTC: Sweet, an ROTC officer during JP’s year at Poly High. Brothers disappointed in Jackson as athlete: FLP. ”The High Steps and the Low Steps” indicates that Sande knew JP had a “yellow streak” in him from childhood, despite Sande’s later comments to the press about their adolescence. Story of fight: JP later recounted the story to Wilcox. Since Sande and Cooter often got into fights, such a confrontation seems likely. Reputation for scrapping: FLP; Robert Cooter. “Mix it up”: Robert Cooter. “Yellow”: Q. by Wilcox, recalling JP.

  Liquor hard to come by: Moses. ROTC incident: Nowhere firmly dated, it must have happened soon after JP joined the ROTC in early fall. Although Sande told Greenberg, c. 1956, that JP was “kicked out for calling ROTC officer SOB,” Sande’s interview with Shorthall in 1959 indicates the incident alone did not cause JP to leave. If it was even contributory, however, it must have taken place before he decided to leave the school, no later than early December 1927, in time for word to get to his father by December 11, when Roy wrote to him. Thus a date of October or November. In “The Genesis of JP” (p. 11 n. 36), O’Connor quotes Mr. Robert Clyde, director of counseling and guidance for the Riverside Schools in a letter of May 7, 1964: “[JP’s] records do not show him being enrolled in a ROTC unit,” although Clyde conceded that “early records are relatively limited.” Robert Cooter: “I never heard of that incident. … I am sure I would have heard of that if there had been anything to it.” Given Sande’s certainty, however, we believe the incident took place. The incident is mentioned in OC&T (IV p. 206) as well as in several other accounts, and has been wrongly cited to indicate that JP was kicked out of school, rather than out of ROTC.

  “Leggings”: Int. by Shorthall, 1959. “You’re a god damned”: Q. by SLM, int. by Shorthall, 1959. “Kicked out”: SLM, int. by Shorthall, 1959. Leon quitting school: Peterson. Jackson thinking about quitting; letter from Roy: LRP to JP, Dec. 11, 1927. Jackson quitting school: In “The Genesis of JP,” O’Connor quotes Robert Clyde, in a letter of May 7, 1964, as saying that “[Pollock] moved to Arizona on March 8, 1928.” Jackson going to Arizona: Roy may have left for summer work in the Kaibab Forest in March 1928. He was there by summer and the break between summer and winter work usually came in March. It is still unlikely that JP traveled with him, since we know that JP worked at Crestline, not
far from Riverside, during the summer. If he had gone with his father to Arizona in March, he would have stayed through the summer. Sande going to Los Angeles; Frank going to New York: FLP. Summer job at Crestline: LRP to JP, Sept. 19, 1928.

  9. LIGHT ON THE PATH

  SOURCES

  Books, articles, catalogue, manuscripts, documents, and transcripts

  Ashton, Yes, but …. ; THB, An Artist in America; Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine; Campbell, Ancient Wisdom Revived; Collins, Light on the Path; Friedman, JP; Goldman, Contemporary Mexican Painting in a Time of Change; Head and Cranston, eds., Reincarnation in World Thought; Helm, Man of Fire; Henstell, Sunshine and Wealth; Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art; Krishnamurti, Life in Freedom (LIF); Lutyens, Krishnamurti; McWilliams, Southern California Country; Manual Arts High School (MAHS), The Artisan: Winter, 1929; MAHS, The Artisan: Summer, 1929; MAHS, The Artisan: Winter, 1930; MAHS, The Artisan: Summer, 1930; McElvaine, The Great Depression; Murphet, When Daylight Comes; OC&T, JP; Olcott, Old Diary Leaves; Sinnett, Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky; Solomon, JP; Sprenger, Spirit of the Toilers; Weaver, Los Angeles; Williams, The Passionate Pilgrim.

  Articles in Manual Arts Weekly (MAW); “Glimpses of the Ojai Camp,” International Star Bulletin (ISB), July 1929; J., “Before the Ojai Camp: Krishnaji’s Talks,” ISB, July 1929; J., “Krishnaji in America,” ISB, Apr. 1930; Krishnamurti, “The Noble Life,” ISB, June 1930; Krishnamurti, “Some Questions and Answers,” ISB, July 1929; Krishnamurti, “A Talk to Teachers at Los Angeles,” ISB, June 1930; “Ojai Star Camp,” ISB, Jan. 1929; “Charles Pollock in Conversation with Terence Maloon, Peter Rippon, and Sylvia Pollock,” Artscribe, Sept. 1977; Yadunandan Prasad, “News Letter from America,” ISB, July 1930; “Reports of Talks by J. Krishnamurti,” ISB, July 1930; A. P. Sinnett, “H.P.B.,” Review of Reviews, June 1891.

  Des Moines Register, Jan. 14, 1957; Manual Arts Weekly (MAW), Sept. 11, 1928–June 23, 1930.

  Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Catalogue, Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1908–09.

  FVOC, “The Genesis of JP: 1912 to 1943” (Ph.D. thesis), Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1965; Laxmi P. Sihare, “Oriental Influence on Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian, 1909–1917” (Ph.D. thesis), New York: New York University, 1967.

  CCP Papers, AAA; Chronology prepared by CCP for EFP, Feb. 1975, AAA; Krishnamurti Foundation of America Archives; L.A. Unified School District Records, Sept. 11, 1928, to June 5, 1930; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Records, 1909–10; JP Papers, AAA.

  SLM, int. by Kathleen Shorthall for Life, 1959, Time/Life Archives; Reuben Kadish, int. by James T. Vallière, n.d., AAA; Manuel Tolegian, int. by Betty Hoag, Feb. 12, 1965, AAA.

  Interviews

  Peter Busa; Marietta Bushnell; Herman Cherry; Paul Christopher; Robert Cooter; Elizabeth Schwankovsky Duncan; George Gosse; Ora Horton; Sam Hunter; Carolyn Schwankovsky Knute; Maria Piacenza Kron; Ernestine Lassaw; Berthe Pacifico Laxineta; Mark Lee; Harold Lehman; Paul McClure; ACM; Karleen Marienthal; Wes Meyers; Arthur Millier, Jr.; ABP; CCP; EFP; FLP; MJP; MLP; May Tabak Rosenberg; Grant Rusk; David Slivka; Araks Tolegian; Aram Tolegian; Ralph Turnquist; Roger Wilcox.

  NOTES

  Bungalow on West Fiftieth: 1056 West Fiftieth; L.A. Unified School District Records, Sept. II, 1928, to June 5, 1930. Drive from Riverside: FLP. “They were the first things”: McClure. Stella window shopping: ACM: Her favorite stores were Bullock’s and Robinson’s, still two of the leading department stores in Los Angeles. Maternal duties discharged: McClure. Sande anxious for Los Angeles: Cooter; ACM. Arloie’s anemia; Sande sleeping on couch; weekends in Riverside: ACM. Manual Arts: See Marienthal; Sprenger. Destroyed in the earthquake of 1933, the original buildings were replaced by structures in a more streamlined style. Double-time schedule: Each class was in fact two classes, winter and summer, “A’s” and “B’s,” each with its own yearbook, graduation ceremonies, officers, mascot, and class color.

  5,200 students: Actual number, 3,204; “Los Angeles High Leads List of Schools at Present,” MAW, Sept. 18, 1928. “The Land of enchantment”: Q. in Henstell, p. 17. The author of The Wizard of Oz continues: “[We had] passed a winter on the Nile, another at beautiful Taormina, had wintered at Sorrento, at Nice, and, in America, at the Florida and Gulf coast resorts. But it is only after we discovered Hollywood … that we wandered no more.” Baum was paid by real-estate brokers for his glowing assessment. Most students white: See MAHS, The Artisan: Winter, 1929, pp. 17–46. The number of Oriental students was more impressive. Students’ clothing; “school is a business”: “Girls’ Dress Rules.” MAW, Feb. 4, 1929. Editorial about “cords”: “Boys Wash Your Cords,” MAW, Feb. 25, 1930. “Desist” from wearing makeup: “Girls’ Dress Rules,” MAW, Feb. 4, 1929. Demerits: Laxineta. Jackson’s first day: L.A. Unified School District Records, Sept. 11, 1928, to June 5, 1930.

  “Schwany”: Duncan. Schwankovsky handsome: Duncan; Lehman. “Kook”: Laxineta. “Extremist”: Manuel Tolegian to Hoag, Feb. 12, 1965. “He was on one side”: Lehman. Bringing nudes to Manual Arts: Duncan; Lehman. JP to CCP and FLP, Oct. 22, 1929: “We are very fortunate in that this is the only school in the city that have models. Altho it is difficult to have a nude and get by the board, Schwankavsky [sic] is brave enough to have them.” Schwankovsky’s ancestry: Duncan. “An unhappy young man”: Duncan. Pennsylvania Academy: Knute; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts school records, 1909–10. Schwankovksy studied with Thomas P. Anshutz and William Merritt Chase; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, pp. 4–5. Art Students League: Knute; FVOC, “The Genesis of JP,” p. 13. Goucher; séances and spirits: Duncan. Dickens “their guiding spirit”: Knute. “‘The practical one”; tea leaves; Ouija board; “out-of-body experiments”: Duncan.

  Schwankovsky set designer: Knute. Silent movies: Duncan. Schwankovsky going to Manual Arts: Duncan. Merely competent: Lehman. Thirty-two years: Schwankovsky to FVOC, Mar. 16, 1964, q. in FVOC, “The Genesis of JP,” pp. 13, 33 n. 45: He was there for “some thirty-two years.” Duncan says her father spent thirty-six or thirty-seven years at Manual Arts. Schwankovsky’s subject matter: Knute. Lorser Feitelson to FVOC, June 3, 1964, q. in FVOC, “The Genesis of JP,” p. 33 n. 47.

  Stage sets: See Frances Jones, “Maid of France,” in MAHS, The Artisan: Winter, 1930, p. 139. Fencing team: Duncan. “Color week”: Louise Oliver, “School Life,” in MAHS, The Artisan: Summer, 1930, p. 159. Occasional solo: Duncan. Schwankovsky seldom teaching: Laxineta. Shirtsleeves: Lehman. Baritone: Duncan; Laxineta. Velvet cape; musical soirees: Araks Tolegian, recalling Manuel. Dark rumors: Laxineta; Lehman. Phrenocosmian: Louise Oliver, “School Life,” in MAHS, The Artisan: Summer, 1930, p. 165.

  Lehman: Although Schwankovsky spent little time in the classroom, he often invited students into his office for “gabfests.” Ashton, p. 14: “Guston and Pollock were Schwankovsky’s star pupils.” But neither Knute nor Duncan can remember him commenting on JP until late in life when a television crew in Los Angeles producing a short film on JP sought him out. The only student Schwankovsky remembered fondly according to Duncan was Gus Ariola, a cartoonist famous for the comic strip “Gordo.” At Manual Arts, JP adopted the nickname “Hugo”; MJP; Araks Tolegian, recalling Manuel. JP used “Hugo” when he signed Tolegian’s copy of the 1930 Manual Arts yearbook; Araks Tolegian. Schwankovsky was an admirer of Victor Hugo; Duncan.

  “Artists with no firm base”: Duncan: Her brother, Frederick Schwankovsky III, and his wife taught their pet “parakeet to say, ‘Grandpa says down with modern art.’” “Expand their consciousnesses”: Schwankovsky to FVOC, Mar. 16, 1964, q. in FVOC, “The Genesis of JP,” p. 195 n. 45. Poetry and music; painting dreams: Duncan. Schwankovsky’s technical experiments: Lehman; Araks Tolegian, recalling Manuel. Manuel Tolegian, int. by Hoag, Feb. 12, 1965: “We just poured paint on a piece of paper, you see, and we put watercolor with alcohol and turpentine.” “Crazed looking”: Araks Tolegian. Schwankovsky borrowing from stage design; “He did
a lot”: Duncan. “[Jack] couldn’t”: SLM, int. by Shorthall, 1959.

  Goldstein and Guston: Throughout this period, Guston continued to use his family name, Goldstein, although he must already have contemplated changing it: He signed all of his cartoons in the MAW “Phil Goldstein” except one signed “Phil Goldy”; MAW, June 4, 1929. “Drawing seriously”; Goldstein born in Montreal: Ashton, p. 12. Goldstein dapper: Ashton, p. 16. Gathering in Schwankovsky’s office: Lehman. OC&T IV, p. 206: In 1928, JP’s “acquaintances included Philip Guston, Reuben Kadish, Manuel Tolegian, Harold Lehman, Leonard Stark, Donald Brown, and Jules Langsner.” In fact, JP didn’t meet Lehman until Lehman moved to Los Angeles in February 1930. JP didn’t meet Kadish, Langsner, or Stark until summer 1931 when JP returned to Los Angeles from New York. Hodges banished: Laxineta; Horton: Hodges, who met Mrs. Pacifico on a ship voyage from New York, boarded at her home. Hodges’s effeminate manner: Horton. Hodges’s talent: Laxineta. Description of Brown; Brown’s reading: ABP; Friedman, p. 10; Ashton, p. 15.

  Tolegian’s birth date: Tolegian, int. by Hoag, Feb. 12, 1965: “Until I went into the Army, I thought I was born October 8, 1912.” “Jeriar Tolegian”: Aram Tolegian: Manuel was called Jeriar or Jeryar—the spellings were interchangeable—within the family. Construction and farm work; grocery store; father getting cancer; dying; Manuel taking father’s name: Aram Tolegian. Manuel’s tales of his father: Araks Tolegian, recalling Manuel. Aram Tolegian: His father was a woodcarver, so he obviously had some artistic inclinations.