Jackson Pollock

by Steven Naifeh

  “A singular concentration”: A[rb], “Spotlight on: De Kooning,” p. 33. Invective: Elaine de Kooning in “JP: An Artists’ Symposium, Part I,” p. 64. Knife nearer Jackson’s throat: Kamrowski. “Pardon me”: Q. by Elaine de Kooning, in “JP,” p. 64. “Jackson, why the hell”: Q. by Ethel Baziotes. “No reputations”: CG, “The Present Prospects,” p. 29. From “Modern” to “Contemporary”: Friedman, p. 124; statement made on Feb. 17, 1948. “Obscurity and negation”: Plaut, q. in OC&T IV, p. 242. Tomlin agitating: Friedman, p. 124. Demonstration: Friedman, p. 124; Potter, p. 96.

  Demarest trust: Ann Shiras, secretary, Eben Demarest Trust Fund, to JP, June 13, 1948. The first payment of $417.28 was made on October 21, 1948; Jerome P. Corcoran, Trust Officer, Mellon National Bank and Trust Co., to JP, Oct. 1, 1948. Terms of the trust: Eileen Wilhelm, officer of the Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh, which administers the Demarest Trust. John H. Sweeney: When Parsons told Shorthall (Nov. 9, 1959) that Sweeney pried the grant out of “some Boston foundation,” she was getting the facts confused. The Demarest Trust was a Pittsburgh foundation, but John Sweeney, one member of the trust’s advisory committee, was in fact a resident of Boston, which supports the inference that he was James Johnson Sweeney’s contact on the advisory committee and instrumental in securing the grant for JP. The coincidence of name is obvious. Further support comes from Friedman who notes (p. 121), presumably recalling Lee Krasner, that the fund was “connected with James Johnson Sweeney’s family.” Lee’s contact with Sweeney: LK. She was also in contact with Sweeney’s close friends, Herbert and Mercedes Matter, who had recently returned from California.

  Little: Little. Haucks: Hauck. Newman: Newman, int. by Shorthall, Nov. 9, 1959. Zogbaums: Zogbaum. Hunters: Sam Hunter. Brooks and Park: Charlotte Brooks; James Brooks. Mercer: Mercer. Greenberg: CG. Kirstein invited: Davis to LK and JP, from Lisbon, Sept. 26. 1948: “Have you had Lincoln Kirstein for the weekend?” Sykes: Johnson. Lisses: Liss. Jackson barbecuing: Little. Lee promoting Jackson: Hartigan: “She went over everything. She showed us earlier paintings, things that Sweeney had written, and talked about their hopes of Jackson being able to get recognition. It was quite a presentation.”

  Mercedes and Vita with Lee: Vita Peterson. Matter filming Calder: Herbert Matter. Beach sessions: Vita Peterson. Amagansett: Little. East Hampton: Vita Peterson. “Immensely American”: Gustaf Peterson. Children: Alex Matter and Andrea Peterson. Stories about Gyp: Vita Peterson. Peterson said the stories that JP told were about a wondrous dog named Ahab—the name of a black poodle that JP and Lee owned in the 1950s. But Ahab was acquired from Alfonso Ossorio and Ted Dragon, whom JP hadn’t yet met. Peterson does say that JP was accompanied by Gyp at times, and any reference to an earlier dog with the same name must have been to Gyp.

  Fishing with Little: They fished for “whiting” at dusk; see Friedman, p. 123. Rarely talking: Little. Renovating Little’s house: Edward Hults; Little. Whiskey banned by Lee: Wilcox. Matter’s age: Herbert Matter. JP, q. by Blake: “You know, I really love that guy. I really love Herbert Matter.” Filming on the beaches: According to Friedman (p. 121), Matter wanted to relate the shapes and movements of the mobiles to the “white cliffs and gusty winds” of Montauk. Jackson helping with film: Herbert Matter. See also Friedman, pp. 121–22. “Never have I known”: Q. in Hoberman, “Harold Rosenberg’s Radical Cheek,” p. 11. “Doing boy things”: Q. in Friedman, p. 137. “Pure chaos”: Kamrowski. “Disaster”: Q. in Friedman, p. 88. Jackson impressed by “floating” panels: Kamrowski. Exhibition, Feb. 16–Mar. 6. 1948; see Maurer and Bayles, Gerome Kamrowski. Smith asked for similar installation: Smith’s account of this incident in DP&G, “Who Was JP?” p. 53, is fraught with errors, presumably just the result of a faulty memory. “Great”; “thrilling”: Q. in DP&G, “Who Was JP?” p. 53.

  Dyn: A magazine edited by Wolfgang Paalen and Kurt Seligmann. The work was The Moon Woman Cuts the Circle and was illustrated following page 16 of the November 1944 issue. Harry Jackson incorrectly remembers the work as She-Wolf. Assault on Tarawa: Harry Jackson was one of 5,600 marines who stormed Betio Island, Tarawa, on November 20, 1943; Pointer and Goddard, pp. 34–35. “Goddamn nub”; “totally authentic”: Jackson. “Felt deep”: Harry Jackson, q. in Pointer and Goddard, p. 43: On March 18, Harry Jackson noted in his journal that the painting had “an incredible authority and certainly, a vitality. It was a very Plains Indian sort of thing, mixed with German Expressionism.” Studying with Tamayo: Hartigan. He studied with Tamayo at the Brooklyn Museum under Public Law 16 for disabled veterans, and later, in 1948, at Hofmann’s Eighth Street school; Pointer and Goddard, p. 45. Residence on Lower East Side: Harry Jackson: 3 Baruch Place—Cage and Feldman were “about a block away.” Jackson and Hartigan finding Pollock “fascinating”: Hartigan. “Something very profound”; Sekula: Harry Jackson. “Peggy Guggenheim had abandoned”: Sekula q. by Hartigan. “Well, shit”: Q. by Harry Jackson.

  Harry Shapiro: Brach; Hartigan. Father leaving home: Pointer and Goddard, p. 23. Mother running diner: Hartigan. Aunt encouraging trips to museum: Harry Jackson. Captivated by “cowboys”: Pointer and Goddard, p. 23: These men must have been surrogates for his father who, on sporadic visits home, took his son “for his first horseback ride and … to watch polo practices at the nearby 124th Field Artillery Armory.” Photo-essay in Life: “Winter Comes to a Wyoming Ranch,” by Charles Belden, Life, Feb. 8, 1937, cited in Pointer and Goddard, p. 26. Working at Pitchfork Ranch: Harry Jackson. “Ride and rope”: Hartigan. “Nice Jewish boy”: Brach. “You gave birth”: Q. by Harry Jackson. Harry was painting during much of this time. His aunt Doris, who bought him a Hoot Gibson outfit, also took him to the Art Institute of Chicago to admire plaster casts of equestrian statues by Donatello and Verrocchio; Pointer and Goddard, p. 25. Like Benton, he tried to resolve the dichotomies by his choice of subject matter, filling his sketchbook with drawings of cowboys and Indians and soldiers; Pointer and Goddard, p. 23. Among the first works of art that he admired were Benton’s Indiana murals, which were shown at the Chicago Art Institute during the 1933 world’s fair. (Panels from the State of Indiana Exhibit at the Century of Progress International Exposition, Chicago, 1933–34.)

  Jackson talking about childhood: Harry Jackson, recalling JP. Backdated nostalgia: Harry Jackson refers to JP’s “false nostalgia” about his childhood in the West. Activities around the house; “half-handy”; “analyzing works”: Harry Jackson. “You goddamn slut”: Q. by Harry Jackson. “Like a lion tamer”: Sam Hunter. Clarifying Jackson’s ideas: Charlotte Brooks: “Lee would make him clarify his thoughts. She was really tough. She wouldn’t let him get away with anything, and he would get angry. She would force him into being articulate.” Covering for Jackson: Resnick, q. in Potter, p. 174. “Won’t let me go”: Q. by Jackson. “She dominated him”: Harry Jackson. Sensing the devotion: Hartigan: “They were really devoted to each other, on every level—including, obviously, a sexual one.”

  The Wooden Horse: Number 10A, 1948, OC&T 207, II, pp. 28–29. Wooden head: Little. Number 1, 1948: OC&T 186, II, pp. 2–3. 5½-by-8½-feet: 68 by 104 inches. Number 4, 1948: Gray and Red: OC&T 202, II, pp. 22–23. Number 12A, 1948: Yellow, Gray, Black: OC&T 200, II, pp. 20–21. Number 26, 1948: Black and White; OC&T 187, II, p. 6. Number 5, 1948: OC&T 188, II, p. 7. Composition board: White, Black, Blue, and Red on White, OC&T 189, II, p. 8. Metal: Tondo, OC&T 208, II, p. 30. Cardboard: Number 23, 1948, OC&T 199, II, pp. 20–21. Paper used for canvas: Number 15, 1948: Red, Gray, White, Yellow, OC&T 196, II, p. 17. Gesso: Number 12A, 1948: Yellow, Gray, Black, OC&T 200, II, pp. 20–21. Masonite: Number 3, 1948, OC&T 195, II, p. 16. Board: Triad, OC&T 198, II, p. 19. Either at the time or later, he mounted some works on canvas (Silver over Black, White, Yellow, and Red; OC&T 192, II, pp. 11–12) or chipboard (Number 20, 1948, OC&T 191, II, p. 10). Black, White and Gray: Number 11A, 1948, OC&T 203, II, p. 24. See also Number 23, 1948, OC&T 199, II, pp. 20–21; Number 22A, 1948, OC&T 201, II, pp. 22–23; Number 4, 1948: Gray and Red, OC&T 202, II
, pp. 22–23. Vast tangles: Number 20, 1948, OC&T 191, II, p. 10. Great reservoirs: Number 12A, 1948: Yellow, Gray, Black, OC&T 200, II, pp. 20–21. Silver over Black, White, Yellow and Red: OC&T 192, II, pp. 11–12. Dark over light: See, e.g., Number 23, 1948, OC&T 199, II, pp. 20–21; Number 22A, 1948, OC&T 201, II, pp. 22–23; Number 4, 1948: Gray and Red, OC&T 202, II, pp. 22–23; Black, White and Gray: Number 11A, 1948, OC&T 203, II, p. 24. Arabesque: Number 13A, 1948, OC&T 217, II, pp. 38–39 (37¼” × 116½”). See also Number 15, 1948: Red, Gray, White, Yellow, OC&T 196, II, p. 17; Number 16A, 1948, OC&T 197, II, p. 18; Triad, OC&T 198, II, p. 19. Tondo: Circle, OC&T 64, I, p. 50, dated 1938–41. White Cockatoo: Number 24A, 1948, OC&T 194, II, pp. 14–15 (35” × 114”) Summertime: Number 9A, 1948, OC&T 205, II, pp. 26–27 (33¼” × 218”) See also Number 25A, 1948: Yellow Ochre Scroll, OC&T 193, II, pp. 12–13 (35” × 112⅝”); Number 7A, 1948, OC&T 210, II, pp. 32–33 (36” × 135”).

  Baziotes winning prize: Baziotes. Guston’s Prix de Rome: Cherry; Ashton, “Yes, but …,” p. 82. Article in Life: “Philip Guston,” pp. 90–92. New style conceived in Italy: Cherry. Schapiro: Guston conceived his new signature image while sitting on an Italian beach. Continued approval: Resnick: “When [Guston] first became abstract. … he immediately got attention that people who had been painting like that for years never got. They never got into the Whitney.” “[What] Mondrian would have done”: Q. by Brach.

  Jason’s birth: ACM: Arloie liked to interpret the name “Jason” as a combination of Sande’s two brothers’ names, Jay and Jackson. “A darling”: SMP to FLP, MLP, and Jonathan, Feb. 7, 1948. Babysitting; chicken pox; Sande working overtime: SMP to FLP, MLP, and Jonathan, Jan. 10. 1949.

  Rumors (baseless) of affairs: LK, q. by Friedman; Hauck; Sterne. “Wanting to taste”: Rosenberg. Vita Peterson, who claims that JP and Mercedes were “highly attracted to one another,” says they never had an affair: “I asked her and she said not.” Esteban Vicente, another confidant of Matter, also denies any affair. Herbert Matter: “I think Jackson was quite attracted to Mercedes but there was never the slightest thing between them … that’s my feeling.”

  Sexual threats: Rosenberg. Arrival of Pantuhoff: LK. Society circuit; “Oriental charm”: Rosenberg. “Drive Jackson”: Vita Peterson. “No privacy”: LK, q. in Diamonstein, p. 210. Poorly lit room: Wilcox. Lee rarely caught at easel: Jackson; Vita Peterson; Wilcox, etc. Wilcox: The first year, he caught her there occasionally. None of Lee’s work hung: Resnick. Lee’s canvases reused: Stolbach: These were probably the so-called “gray slabs” or “slab paintings” from 1942 to 1944. “Try a mosaic”: LK, q. in Diamonstein, ed., p. 210. Mosaic tables: See Landau, “LK,” pp. 241–42; Diamonstein, p. 210; Wasserman, “LK in Mid-Career,” p. 10; Nemser, “LK’s Paintings 1946–49,” p. 62. The accepted date for the tables is 1947, but visitors in the summer of 1948 (notably Harry Jackson) say she was working on the tables at that time. “Had to force her”: Harry Jackson. Wilcox: “Jackson got her to work with him on the table. She didn’t want to touch the project. She said, ‘No, Jackson, you do it.’ And he said, ‘No, we’re going to do it together.’ It was his idea and he had to talk her into taking part.” According to Lee, she used a scheme she had made for Hofmann as a basis for the design.

  Lee painting again: Hartigan and Harry Jackson say that Lee had not yet begun at this time. Elsewhere, Harry talks about JP being disdainful of Lee’s efforts—implying that there were efforts to be disdainful about, although, called on to be more specific, the only work he could remember was the mosaic table. But Stella wrote Frank in late 1947 (SMP to FLP, MLP, and Jonathan, Dec. 11, 1947) suggesting that Lee was already at least dabbling by that date and that she had not been working on prior visits. This would place her return to painting at the end of 1947. Lee herself was never firm about her dates. In some interviews (e.g., int. by Nemser, p. 88), she cited 1946 as the onset of her new style. Elsewhere (int. by Seckler, Dec. 14, 1967), she was less firm: “More or less in 1946.” Landau, “LK,” p. 242: “Krasner’s tables constituted the first substantive work she was able to bring to a successful conclusion since her ‘gray slabs’ had begun to evolve almost four years before.” This, also, would suggest a late 1947 date for her renewed career. Many people who knew Lee and were in and out of the house in the summer of 1948 say that she wasn’t painting at all. Harry Jackson’s statement about Lee’s painting could date from October or November 1948 when he and Hartigan came, or to the summer of 1949, the summer of 1950, and so forth. Therefore, Lee probably never stopped working completely, and always dabbled now and then. But she didn’t really get back into it in any “consistent” (Bultman’s term) or meaningful way until the summer of 1948 or afterward.

  Jackson’s enthusiasm evaporated: Wilcox maintains the idea that JP discouraged Lee’s painting is “strictly a lie”; we believe that the encouragement was superficial and the discouragement strong, if subtle. Jackson’s invitations: Actually, JP didn’t invite Lee often. According to Applehof, a young art historian who later lived with Lee for part of a summer, JP preferred to bring the works into the living room and show them. “Three or four times”: LK. “My enthusiasm”: Q. in Kernan, “LK.” For obvious reasons, Lee contradicted herself in print on this point; see LK, q. in Gruen, p. 232: “There was never any conflict or competition about our respective work. Jackson had the greatest interest in my painting—even enthusiasm.” “Grudgingly”: Dragon. “That works”: Q. by LK, q. in Gruen, p. 232. “Just continue”: Q. by LK, q. in Nemser, p. 92. Jackson “disdainful”: Harry Jackson. Like many visitors, Harry, too, was disdainful: “Her paintings were, shit, pleasant to look at. Better than a bare wall but only slightly … the kind of stuff the schools produce by the tons. It’s all understood, pat.” There were, of course, exceptions like Wilcox and his wife, Lucia, who “liked her painting and … encouraged her to paint.” “‘Little woman attitude”’: Harry Jackson.

  Lee working mornings: LK, lecture, Columbia, Oct. 5, 1983. Charlotte Brooks: Lee would get started at 8:00 in the morning, which would leave her about three hours of painting before JP got up at 10:30 or 11:00. Schaefer visit: Wilcox: “She was an interior decorator who had a gallery as part of her shop.” Truckload of furniture: Among the items that the Pollocks received from the Macys were a large Spanish table, a Jacobean chest, and a handwoven rug. “We’ll have to give them something,” JP said to Lee. ”What about one of your mosaic tables?” LK answered, “What about one of your paintings?” “Have you seen them admire my paintings?” JP asked. “But every time they’re here, they mention your table.” All from Wallach, “LK.” Lee asked to participate in show: Landau, “LK,” p. 244, citing interview with LK, July 19, 1979. Reaction to Lee’s table: Landau, “LK,” p. 245. “Wife of the painter”: Review by Aline B. Loucheim, q. in Landau, “LK,” p. 245. Schaefer dinner: Wilcox, who heard about the event from both JP and Schaefer. Description of Schaefer: CG. “What does an old lady”: Q. by CG: “Jackson sensed that that was where Schaefer was vulnerable. It was not.”

  Hardly a week: Ronald Stein. Lee buying beer: Wilcox. Missing appointments: JP to Wally and Ed Strautin, Oct. 2, 1946. “Jackson wasn’t feeling”: See JP to Louis Bunce, July 29, 1949, concerning a canceled visit by the Bunces to Springs. “Go slow”: Q. by Ferber. Ninety dollars: Harry Jackson claims that he lent JP $250 for the car, but according to Hartigan, JP already had the car when she and Harry met him. Harry did lend him some money, although less than $250. Potter, p. 96: JP said it was $90, which JP returned soon thereafter but not, as Harry Jackson claims, when wired to do so from Mexico. Hartigan: Harry did wire for money from Mexico—but he wired his father, not JP, for the money. “[Jack] has a Ford”: SMP to FLP, MLP, and Jonathan, Jan. 10, 1949. Fight with Phillips: Ferber, see Phillips, p. 88. Phillips claims he helped JP home; Ferber says it was Rothko. Gorky’s suicide: The accident took place on June 26. Gorky hanged himself on July 21; Lader, p. 118.

  35. CELEBRITY

  SOURCES

  Books, arti
cles, manuscript, records, and transcripts

  Epstein and Barlow, East Hampton; Friedman, JP; Gruen, The Party’s Over Now; Guilbaut, How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art; Hubbard, Dianetics; Kootz Gallery, The Intrasubjectives; Lynes, Good Old Modern; Naifeh, Culture Making; Potter, To a Violent Grave; Tabak, But Not for Love.

  Robert Alan Aurthur, “Hitting the Boiling Point, Freakwise, at East Hampton,” Esquire, June 1972; E[laine de] K[ooning], “Reviews and Previews,” Art News, Mar. 1949; “Dead End Art: A Frenchman’s Mud-and-Rubble Paintings Reduce Modernism to a Joke,” Life, Dec. 20, 1948; Léon Degand, “Le retour d’un grand peintre, F. Léger,” Lettres françaises, Apr. 13, 1946; DP&G, ”Who Was JP?” Art in America, May–June 1967; CG, “Art,” Nation, Feb. 19, 1949; “A Life Round Table on Modern Art,” Life, Oct. 11, 1948; Walter Lippmann, “La destinée américaine,” Les études américaines, Apr.–May 1946; Aline B. Loucheim, ”Who Buys What in the Picture Boom?” Art News, July 1, 1944; M[argaret] L[owengrund], “Pollock Hieroglyphics,” Art Digest, Feb. 1, 1949; Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe, “Museum,” Architectural Forum, May 1943; “Words,” Time, Feb. 7, 1949; James T. Vallière, “Daniel T. Miller,” Provincetown Review, Fall 1968.

  Emily Genauer, “Ethel Edwards Proves Mature Artist,” New York World-Telegram, Feb. 7, 1949; Sam Hunter, “Among the New Shows,” NYT, Jan. 30, 1949; Paul Richard, “Two-Sided Pollock,” Washington Post, Oct. 15, 1983; Edmund White, “Mythic Links,” Village Voice, Oct. 4, 1983.

  Judy Seixas, “My Journal: A Weekend in East Hampton” (unpub. ms.), Sept. 25, 1949, n.p.

  Record of JP’s sales, Time/Life Archives.

  LK, int. by Dorothy Gees Seckler, AAA; Alfonso Ossorio, int. by Forrest Selvig, Nov. 19, 1968, AAA; Tony Smith, int. by James T. Vallière, Aug. 1965, AAA.