Jackson Pollock
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Two penciled doodles: OC&T 950, IV, pp. 32–33; it was at this time that snakes and arrows entered JP’s artistic vocabulary for the first time, more likely a result of his contact with Henderson than of his familiarity with Orozco, as inferred by FVOC, “The Genesis of JP.” p. 191. Gouaches with Indian motifs: OC&T 946–49, IV, pp. 28–31; see also OC&T 554, III, p. 116, which incorporates a tableau painted in an Indian-like geometric style and filled with Indian motifs, and Circle (OC&T 64, I, pp. 50–51), a circular work on Masonite approximately eleven inches in diameter, incorporating a number of intertwined snakes, painted in red, yellow, blue, and green with some black. In OC&T 65, I, pp. 50–51, JP incorporates both the enriched Indian palette (with areas of bright yellow, red, and blue with green and black) and a number of seemingly Indian motifs—a chaotic grouping of horses, snakes, arrows, feathers, and lightning bolts—all presided over by a woman, seen in profile and depicted with Stella-like implacability. These Indian gouaches are related to a series of paintings by John Graham. See, for example, Interior, c. 1939–40, cat. 29, in Green, p. 105. Shamanistic masks: Compare with OC&T 946, IV, p. 28; see also OC&T 70, I, p. 55; 77, I, p. 60; 78, I, p. 61; and 79, I, p. 62. “Alarming aspect”: Coe, p. 128.
Conversation with Wingert: Busa. Celebrating mythological past: Coe, p. 125. Associations with animals: Coe, p. 127. Carvings: Coe, p. 126. Jackson’s reaction to Indian art: SLM, int. by Vallière, Aug. 1963: “Jackson disliked innate objects,” adding that what he liked about the Indian objects they saw together was “Two heads in one.” Bull attacking woman: OC&T 507, III, p. 87. Bull transforming into man: OC&T 557, III, p. 118. Horse transforming into snake: OC&T 534, III, p. 104. Snake in womb: OC&T 531, III, p. 102; also: a bull, OC&T 495, III, p. 80; a horse and bull, OC&T 536, III, p. 106; snakes, bulls, and birds, OC&T 561, III, p. 120, and 563, III, p. 121; a bizarre image divided into three strict horizontal parts: human lying down on top, horse standing in middle, snake uncoiled along the bottom, OC&T 550, III, p. 114; animals struggling with men, OC&T 545–48, pp. 112–13.
23. INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY
SOURCES
Books, articles, manuscripts, and transcripts
Allen, Since Yesterday; Alloway and MacNaughton, Adolph Gottlieb; Ashton, The New York School; Centre Georges Pompidou, JP; Diamonstein, ed., The Art World; Diamonstein, ed., Inside New York’s Art World; Graham, System and Dialectics of Art; Green, John Graham; C. G. Jung Institute, The Shaman from Elko; Lukach, Hilla Rebay; McElvaine, The Great Depression; McKinzie, The New Deal for Artists; New York Panorama; OC&T, JP; Potter, To a Violent Grave; Rose, LK; Schwankovsky, Art Appreciation Essays; Solomon, JP.
Alfred M. Frankfurter, “Picasso in Retrospect: 1939–1900: The Comprehensive Exhibition in New York and Chicago,” Art News, Nov. 18, 1939; John Graham, “Primitive Art and Picasso,” Magazine of Art, Apr. 1937; CG, “New York Painting Only Yesterday,” Art News, Summer 1957; Hayden Herrera, “John Graham: Modernist Turns Magus,” Arts, Oct. 1976; Gareth S. Hill, “J. L. H.: His Life and His Work,” in C. G. Jung Institute; Eila Kokkinen, “John Graham During the 1940s,” Arts, Nov. 1976; Elizabeth Langhorne, “Department of Jungian Amplification, Part II: More on Rubin on Pollock, Art in America, Oct. 1980; Gerald M. Monroe, “Artists as Militant Trade Union Workers During the Great Depression,” AAA Journal, 1964; Gerald M. Monroe, “The ’30s: Art, Ideology and the WPA,” Art in America, Nov.–Dec. 1975; “Reports of Talks by J. Kirshnamurti,” International Star Bulletin, July 1930; Barbara Rose, “Arshile Gorky and John Graham: Eastern Exiles in a Western World,” Arts, Mar. 1976; William Rubin, “Pollock as Jungian Illustrator: The Limits of Psychological Criticism. Part I,” Art in America, Dec. 1979; Irving Sandler, “Department of Jungian Amplification, Part II: More on Rubin on Pollock,” Art in America, Oct. 1980; Irving Sandler, “John D. Graham: The Painter as Esthetician and Connoisseur,” Artforum, Oct. 1968; Sidney Tillim, “The Alloway International,” Arts, Mar. 1964; Judith Wolfe, “Jungian Aspects of JP’s Imagery,” Artforum, Nov. 1972.
Ellen Gross Landau, “LK: A Study of Her Early Career (1926–1949)” (Ph.D. thesis). Newark: University of Delaware, 1981; FVOC. “The Genesis of JP: 1912 to 1943” (Ph.D. thesis). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1965.
Fritz Bultman, int. by Irving Sandler, Jan. 1, 1968, AAA; LK. int. by Barbara Rose, July 31, 1966, AAA.
Interviews
Lionel Abel; Fritz Bultman; Eda Bunce; Peter Busa; Nicholas Carone; Dorothy Dehner; Anne Edgerton; Ron Gorchov; Eleanor Green; CG; Reuben Kadish; Gerome Kamrowski; Lillian Olaney Kiesler; Ruth Kligman; LK; Harold Lehman; ACM; Jack Mayer; David Porter; May Tabak Rosenberg; Nene Schardt; Herman Somberg; Hedda Sterne; Wally Strautin; Roger Wilcox.
NOTES
Unemployment figures: Allen, p. 266. World’s Fair: New York Panorama, pp. 487–500. Jackson going to Ferndale: SLM to CCP, June 3, 1939. Quarry: Schardt. Trips to town: Bunce. Garden; fruit trees; “the farming”: Schardt. No lights; butter and beer: Bunce. Jay, Alma, and Meerts visiting: Schardt. Strautins and Goldsteins: Strautin. Trips into New York: Schardt.
“Everyone was drinking”: Bunce. Cut 1,500 artists: FVOC, “The Genesis of JP,” p. 72. “We have been investigated”; “my pack of lies”: SLM to CCP, Mar. 1939. More than 775,000 lost jobs: McElvaine, p. 308. Loyalty oath: McKinzie, p. 163. WPA Art Program: FVOC, “The Genesis of JP,” p. 73, citing “The United States Government Art Projects. A Brief Summary,” excerpted by the Department of Circulating Exhibitions, MOMA, from annual articles on painting and sculpture prepared by Dorothy C. Miller for Collier’s Yearbook (1935–43). State and local control: McKinzie, p. 149. “Force account”: McKinzie, p. 116.
Artists’ demonstrations: See Monroe, “Artists as Militant Trade Union Workers,” pp. 7–10, and Monroe, “The ’30s,” pp. 64–67. “We are defeated”: Rose, pp. 39–40. “[He said,] one person”; “force and vitality”; “one knew exactly”: LK, int. by Rose, July 31, 1966. “He has painted everything”: John Graham, q. in Herrera, “John Graham,” p. 104. “Little bit”: Q. in Greenberg, “New York Painting Only Yesterday,” p. 85. “Picasso is the greatest”: John Graham, q. in Herrera, “John Graham,” p. 102.
Description of Graham: Graham. Eyes: Solomon, p. 101. “You always knew”: Q. in Herrera, “John Graham,” p. 104. Receiving friends in the nude; acrobatic tricks: Wilcox. Clothing: Gorchov. Monocle: Rose, “Arshile Gorky and John Graham,” p. 63. Bought on Third Avenue: Solomon, p. 101. Posture: Busa. Graham’s intellect: Herrera, “John Graham,” p. 105. “We want bread!”: De Kooning, recalling Graham, q. in Herrera, “John Graham,” p. 105. “A universal genius”: Q. in Rose, “Arshile Gorky and John Graham,” p. 64. “Any repetitive act”: Kokkinen, “John Graham During the 1940s,” p. 101. Smoking “primitive”; “the proliferation”: Graham, q. by Wilcox. Interest in rich women: Rosenberg. Staring at women’s feet on the beach: Porter. “Women should be wounded”: Q. by Dehner. “Utterly charming”: Dehner. “Extremely elegant”: Sterne. “Very sophisticated”: Kligman.
Intimate of Imperial family: See Dehner, foreword to Graham, p. xvi; Kokkinen, “John Graham During the 1940s,” p. 100; Dehner. Portrait of Czar Nicholas: Dehner; Sterne. It was typical of his eccentricity that he also displayed portraits of Saint Nicholas and Nicholas Lenin. “When I grew up”: Q. in Herrera, “John Graham,” p. 103. Graham’s age: Wilcox; Kligman.
Graham born in 1887: According to a certified copy of Graham’s baptismal records, he was born on December 27, 1886, by the Julian calendar then in use in Poland and Russia, or on January 8 or 9, 1887, by the Gregorian calendar; Green, p. 133. Versions of ancestry: Rose, “Arshile Gorky and John Graham,” p. 64. Nobility in his blood: Green, p. 133. Baptized in Kiev: On Dec. 1, 1891, in a Roman Catholic church; Green, p. 133. Imperial Lyceum: Enrolled in 1899; Green, p. 133. Law degree: Dehner, foreword to Graham, p. xvi. He received the equivalent of a J.D. from the University of St. Vladimir in 1913; Green, p. 134. Despite his later claims, Graham never held a judgeship. Two children: Kyril (Green, p. 1
34) and Maria; Edgerton. Cavalry experience: Kokkinen, “John Graham During the 1940s,” p. 100. Coronet: Contrary to Graham’s later claims, a relatively low rank; Green, p. 134. St. George Cross: Allentuck, introduction to Graham, p. 10; Green, p. 134. Three crosses: Obituary, Art News, Sept. 1961, p. 46, cited in FVOC, “The Genesis of JP,” p. 79.
Joining counterrevolution: Allentuck, introduction to Graham, p. 11. Imprisoned with czar: Green (p. 134) concludes “this story cannot be supported.” Second wife: Married to twenty-three-year-old Vera Aleksandrovna, Sept. 24, 1918, in Moscow; Green, p. 135. Southhampton to New York: Arrived in New York Nov. 28, 1920; Green, pp. 135–36. Studied with John Sloan: Allentuck, introduction to Graham, p. 12. Graham studied at the League from 1922 to 1924; Kokkinen, “John Graham During the 1940s,” p. 100. Presenting himself as Continental: Allentuck, introduction to Graham, p. 12. Exponent of Cubism: Dehner, foreword to Graham, p. xiv; Dehner; Edgerton. Meeting Picasso; frequent trips to Paris: Dehner. Doubts about claims to European travel: Green.
“A connoisseur”: Rose, “Arshile Gorky and John Graham,” p. 62. “The best young painter”: Q. by David Smith in “Notes on My Work,” Arts, Feb. 1960, q. in Landau, “LK,” p. 192. “His annual trips”: Smith in “Notes on My Work,” Arts, Feb. 1960, q. in Landau, “LK,” p. 192. “A missionary”: CG. Third wife: Married to Elinor Gibson Jan. 9, 1924; Green, pp. 137–38. Imitating Cloisonnism: Allentuck, introduction to Graham, p. 20; see Abstraction, 1931, in the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. Kamrowski: “The Art Students League was a conservative bastion, and the only modernists on the New York scene were Graham and Hofmann, Gorky and Stuart Davis. No one else had the intellectual discipline to do a cubist picture.” Stopped painting: Herrera, “John Graham,” p. 104. “The monastery”; “a suffering”; “to freshen the air”: Dehner, foreword to Graham, p. xvii.
“[Graham’s] introduction”: “Notes on My Work,” Arts, Feb. 1960, q. in Landau, “LK,” p. 192. Graham’s book: On its publication in 1937, Art Digest (May 15, 1937, p. 31) called it “a catechism of art, covering every angle in hundreds of questions and answers. Necessarily dogmatic, provocative, and stimulating, by an artist in the movement”; q. in Allentuck, introduction to Graham, p. 43.
“Young outstanding”; “some are just as good”: Graham, p. 154. Graham hired by Rebay: Green, p. 141. Edgerton, archivist at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum: Graham never worked at the museum itself although both he and his fourth wife, Constance Wellman, worked for Rebay prior to the museum’s opening in 1939. Lukach (p. 153) and Kamrowski say Graham worked as an assistant to Rebay in her capacity as curator. Eighth Street apartment: MJP and ABP were also in the apartment that summer. Schardts becoming neighbors of Graham; Graham and JP meeting soon afterward: Schardt. Arloie recalls that the Schardts introduced JP and Graham, but Schardt denies this. Graham at Waldorf Cafeteria: Gorchov, recalling Graham. Graham’s afternoon teas: Kokkinen, “John Graham During the 1940s,” p. 99.
The date and circumstances of JP’s first encounter with Graham are unclear. By one account (which Green, p. 141, accepts), JP was so impressed by the “insight” in Graham, “Primitive Art and Picasso,” that he wrote and tried to get in touch with him soon after it appeared in 1937; LK, int. by Ellen Landau, Feb. 28, 1979, q. in Landau, “LK,” p. 178. But Krasner never said that JP and Graham actually became friends at this point. Sterne: JP “would have had to have met him soon after the article appeared.” Gorchov puts the date even earlier: “He did reminisce a lot about Jackson Pollock after he died. He said that in the ’30s—around ‘35, ‘36, ‘37, ‘38—they always got together at the Waldorf Cafeteria.” O’Connor (OC&T IV, p. 221) assumes JP met him “in April, May or June of 1937 after reading his article,” an assumption based on information provided him by William Lieberman to the effect that Graham considered putting JP’s name in the second edition of System and Dialectics of Art, of which there was no lifetime second edition. But Graham presumably could have been rethinking that list any time after 1937.
JP himself described his first meeting with Graham (to Carone): “I went to see Graham because he knew something about art and I had to know him. I knocked on his door, and I told him I had read the article and that he knew. Graham looked at me and looked at me, then said, ‘Come in.’” A dramatic story, perhaps, but an unlikely one. In the spring of 1937, while JP slouched toward Bloomingdale’s, Graham was still in an out-of-the-way Brooklyn garret (Edgerton: Graham’s address was One Sidney Place) surrounded by a coterie of young artists (Kokkinen, “John Graham During the 1940s,” p. 99), none of whom knew JP until the 1940s; Dehner. That summer, JP embarked on the long journey from Pennsylvania to Martha’s Vineyard to Kansas City that would end the following summer in White Plains. Moreover, it is highly possible that JP failed to see the article when it first appeared. Bunce: “Jack didn’t discuss the magazines much in those days because none of us was affluent enough. I suppose he would get ahold of the art magazines somewhere, somehow, but it wasn’t a major part of his life.”
“Jackson had a unique place”: Mayer. Graham (q. by Bultman) later said “that ‘Jackson was a good boy—a good character—despite his shenanigans.’” “Really crazy”: Constance Graham, q. in Solomon, p. 101. “Who the hell”: Q. in Allentuck, introduction to Graham, p. 22. Franklin stove: Busa. “Theorizing”: Kokkinen, “John Graham During the 1940s,” p. 99. Copy of System and Dialectics: Graham inscribed the copy (no. 503 of the Delphic Studios limited edition) “To Jackson Pollock from Graham”; Landau, “LK,” p. 194. Taking works to Graham: Kadish.
“The greatest of all arts”: Dehner, foreword to Graham, p. xiv. Yoruba, Gouro, and Gabonese works: Allentuck, introduction to Graham, p. 79. Crowninshield collection: Edgerton: Graham actually assembled the collection for Condé Nast, the company that owned Vanity Fair. Green, p. 140: He began buying for Crowninshield as early as 1933. Graham displaying collection: Schardt. “Lyric”; “majestic”; “awesome”: Graham, p. 131. “Wholly different principles”; “spiritual emotions”: Graham, preface to “Exhibition of Sculptures of Old African Collections … Organized by John Graham” (New York: Jacques Seligmann Gallery, 1936), q. by Allentuck, introduction to Graham, p. 77. Primitive races: Q. in Sandler, “John D. Graham,” p. 52. “It should be understood”: Q. in Sandler, “John D. Graham,” p. 52. “Into the canyons”: Herrera, “John Graham,” p. 104; see Allentuck, introduction to Graham, p. 42. “Bring to our consciousness”: Q. in Sandler, “John D. Graham,” p. 52. Pulled from “inside”: Busa.
Color the essence: Hofmann; see Rose, p. 46. Sandler (“John D. Graham,” p. 51), however, argues that Hofmann considered line more important than color. “Gesture, like voice”: Graham, p. 165. Admiration for draftsmen: Graham, p. 105; also Mondrian. “Automatic”: Graham, p. 135. “Authentic”: Graham, p. 165. “Imitation of nature”: Q. in Herrera, “John Graham,” p. 102. “No technical perfection”: Graham, p. 134. “Clear up”: JP to CCP, n.d. “Neither faithful nor distorted”: Graham, p. 134.
Introduction to Picasso: Several writers have noted the coincidence that “Pollock’s analysis [with Henderson] was situated in the context of the arrival of the most influential of Picasso’s works in the United States”; Marcelin Pleynet, “Pollock, Jung et Picasso,” interview with Claire Stoullig, in Centre Georges Pompidou, p. 46. Sandler (“Department of Jungian Amplification, Part II,” pp. 57–58) also notes that “Graham’s linking of primitive art, Picasso’s painting, and ‘the deepest recesses of the Unconscious’ (where Graham said Picasso delved) may have prompted Jackson Pollock to enter Jungian analysis or at least may have allayed possible doubts about his Jungian psychiatrist, Dr. Joseph Henderson.”
Trip to Arensberg home: Lehman. Seeing Three Musicians; trips to see Guernica: Busa. Guernica-inspired sketches: See OC&T 607, III, p. 148; OC&T 490, III, p. 77; OC&T 500, p. 82; OC&T 521, III, p. 96; OC&T 546, p. 109. “Step outside”: Somberg. Picasso retrospective: “Picasso: Forty Years of his Art,” mounted by Barr at MOMA, Nov. 15, 1939–
Jan. 7, 1946. “The master”; “the painter”; “the most fertile”; “an accepted classic”: Frankfurter, “Picasso in Retrospect,” excerpted in Diamonstein, ed., The Art World, p. 152.
“Picasso drops”: Graham, p. 169. Graham’s admiration for cloisonnism: As exhibited in Graham’s 1931 painting, Abstraction, now in the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.; see Kokkinen, “John Graham During the 1940s,” p. 100. “‘The period of the greatest”: Q. in Sandler, “John D. Graham,” p. 51. “Refute modeling”: Q. in Allentuck, introduction to Graham, p. 79; see Graham, p. 181. Assailing obsession with hygiene: Rose, p. 46: “In Graham’s view, accidents should be cultivated, not avoided, and a dramatic, emotional painterly style was preferable to pristine surfaces and hard edges.” Limitations of mediums: Graham, q. in Sandler, “John D. Graham,” p. 51: “The difference between the arts arises because of the difference in the nature of the mediums of expression.”
“Terribly important”: LK, int. by Rubin. “Picasso’s painting”: Q. in Sandler, “Department of Jungian Amplification, Part II,” p. 57. Rejection of facility: Sterne: “Picasso had tremendous talent all his life, and he fought it. If you look at his early work, he could easily have been a ‘pretty’ artist, but he went against his facility.” Using Picasso’s sketches: The drawings had been published in Cahiers d’art, vol. 12, no. 4–5, 1937; see Langhorne, “Department of Jungian Amplification, Part II,” p. 61, citing interview with Bultman. Sure, lyrical, expressive works: For example, OC&T 607, III, p. 148. Woman throwing back her head: OC&T 507, III, p. 87. Horses rearing: OC&T 490, III, p. 77; 500, III, p. 82; 521, III, p. 96; 540, III, p. 109. Bull pawing ground: OC&T 495, III, p. 80; 507, III, p. 87. Heads transforming into masks: See OC&T 70, I, p. 55; 77, I, p. 60; 78, I, p. 61; and 79, I, p. 62. See also the drawings given to Henderson: OC&T 503, III, pp. 84–85 and OC&T 544, III, p. 111. Reclining Woman: OC&T 69, I, p. 54. Decorative geometric forms, clearly Picassoid in origin (note diamond patterns in Girl before a Mirror), serve as the background to the main figure.