Stuart Preston, “Among Current Shows: Museum of Modern Art Acquisitions—Americans and Europeans,” NYT, Dec. 4, 1955.
May Natalie Tabak, “A Collage” (unpub. ms.), n.d.
LK (lecture), Columbia International Affairs Building, Oct. 5, 1983.
East Hampton Town Police, Police Log, Dec. 24, 1953.
Bartender of Sam’s, int. by Shorthall for Life, Nov. 9, 1959, in Time/Life Archives; CG, int. by Shorthall for Life, Nov. 9, 1959, in Time/Life Archives; Elwyn Harris, int. by Shorthall for Life, Nov. 9, 1959, in Time/Life Archives; Barnett Newman, int. by Shorthall for Life, Nov. 9, 1959, in Time/Life Archives; Alfonso Ossorio, int. by Shorthall for Life, Nov. 9, 1959, in Time/Life Archives; George Schaefer, int. by Shorthall for Life, Nov. 9, 1959, in Time/Life Archives.
Interviews
Lionel Abel; Ruth Ann Applehof; Dore Ashton; Nell Blaine; Peter Blake; Norman Bluhm; Paul Brach; Ernest Briggs; James Brooks; David Budd; Fritz Bultman; Eda Bunce; Adele Callaway; Nicholas Carone; Leo Castelli; Alvi Cavagnaro; Herman Cherry; Cynthia Cole; Emil de Antonio; Tibor de Nagy; Karen Del Pilar; Christie Poindexter Dennis; Dane Dixon; Ted Dragon; Herbert Ferber; Audrey Flack; B. H. Friedman; Emmanuel Ghent; Grace Glueck; Ron Gorchov; CG; Robert Beverly Hale; Ben Heller; Eleanor Hempstead; Budd Hopkins; Edward Hults; Ted Hults; Harry Jackson; Sidney Janis; Paul Jenkins; Reuben Kadish; Gerome Kamrowski; Ruth Kligman; LK; Ibram Lassaw; Joe Liss; Millie Liss; Terry Liss; John Little; Cile Downs Lord; Sheridan Lord (confirmation only); Conrad Marca-Relli; Jason McCoy; George McNeil; Mercedes Matter; Jack Mayer; Jeffrey Meyers; Annalee Newman (int. by David Peretz); Constantine Nivola; Alfonso Ossorio; Martin Pajeck; Philip Pavia; Jane Pearce; Elinor Poindexter; David Porter; Milton Resnick; May Tabak Rosenberg; Irving Sandler; Bertha Saunders; Miriam Schapiro; Jon Schueler; Gertrude Shibley; David Slivka; Jane Smith; Nancy Smith; Syd Solomon; Herman Somberg; Patsy Southgate; Ronald Stein; Hedda Sterne; Allene Talmage; Esteban Vicente; Harriet Vicente; Catherine Viviano; Eleanor Ward; Joan Ward; Steve Wheeler; Roger Wilcox; Betsy Zogbaum.
NOTES
Cedar Tavern: Located on University Place between Eighth and Ninth streets in the 1950s, later moved to its present location at University Place between Eleventh and Twelfth streets. Other bars: Kamrowski. “Arty emblems”; flaking plaster: Sandler, “The Club,” p. 31. “Interrogation green”: Budd; Sandler, “The Club,” p. 31. Clock: Mercedes Matter. Sweeping glass off table: The proprietor, “Sam” DiLiberto (q. in Potter, p. 194), would add the broken items to his bill. Dumping food: Dawson, pp. 78–82. Pulling tables: Sam DiLiberto, q. in Potter, p. 194. Obscenities: Friedman, JP, p. xx. “Sucked any”: Q. by Larry Rivers, q. in Potter, p. 195. Pantomiming shooting up: Larry Rivers, q. in Potter, p. 195. “A great lay”: Q. in Hess, “JP,” p. 39. “How do you”: Q. by Larry Rivers, q. in Warhol and Hackett, p. 14. “What the fuck”: Q. by Brach. “I’m a bag boy at the A&P,” answered Brach. “I’m a baseball player,” answered Schueler. ”What do you do?” “Fags”: Q. by Larry Rivers, q. in Potter, p. 195. “To bring notoriety”: Q. by Hopkins. “Whores”: Q. by Wilcox. Budd (q. in Potter, p. 195) noted that there was a lot of tearing of shirts and pushing and using the word “whore.” “Worms”: Q. by Wilcox: “To call someone a worm was Jackson’s nastiest epithet. Somewhere he got the idea that worms have no nervous system at all, that they’re the lowest form of life.” Hess, “Pollock,” p. 39: “He liked to blurt for blurting’s sake. This made him seem picturesque and risky.” Playing with sharp fragments: Sandler.
Picking fights: Cherry: “I told him, ‘Look, if you don’t stop swinging your arms like that, I’m really going to hurt you.”’ Kadish: “He became absolutely irrationally abusive. Once he dragged me outside and started to punch me—a couple of real punches in the face—then I pushed him against a car and he started to cry.” McNeil: JP reveled in the apprehensive hush that fell over a room when he entered. All he had to do was growl and a place would clear at the bar. CG: “I took to ducking under the table when Jackson approached, and sneaked out the back when his back was turned.” Hopkins: “When Pollock was drunk, you did your best to avoid him. You didn’t bring him over because you never knew what was going to happen.”
Jackson wanting in: Barnett Newman was only one of many who advised JP to avoid the Cedar; int. by Shorthall, Nov. 9, 1959. DiLiberto: Real name wasn’t Sam, last name DeLiberto; see Potter, p. 194. “This bear’s head”: Q. in Potter, p. 156. Marca-Relli: “You would see his nose pressed against the window trying to get in, like a poor dog. And he would call somebody out and say, ‘Please tell them to let me in. I’ll be good.’ And finally they would let him in. Within two minutes, he would start that foul language, and everyone would say, ‘Out, Jackson, get out!’ It was like a game.” Coming from Club: Somberg. Kline his Sande: Pavia (q. in Gruen, p. 271) called JP’s relationship with Kline “brotherly.” “One of those people”: Rivers, q. in Warhol and Hackett, p. 14. Kline’s childhood: Hopkins. Kline’s marriage: Marca-Relli. Kline’s escape: Cherry: Kline was “pleasantly drunk all the time,” mostly on beer. “Working binge”: Cherry. Capacity for beer: Sandler. Kline’s indiscriminate affection: Rivers, q. in Warhol and Hackett, p. 14. Cap incident: Sam DiLiberto, q. in Potter, p. 199. “Be right with you”; “Do that once more”: Q. by Sam DiLiberto, q. in Potter, p. 199. Jackson pouring soup: Wheeler.
Lee preparing for show: SMP to CCP, Oct. 17, 1955; see also Solomon, p. 244. Big vertical canvases: Rose, p. 89. Work more self-assured: See Lame Shadow (Rose, fig. 88, p. 89); Stretched Yellow (Rose, fig. 90, p. 91); Shooting Gold (Rose, fig. 89, p. 90). Changed collage elements: Friedman, JP, p. 220. Scraps from Jackson’s paintings: Applehof; see Bald Eagle (Rose, fig. 87, p. 88). “The best”: CG. Full name now used: See Bird Talk (Rose, fig. 86, p. 87) and Shooting Gold (Rose, fig. 89, p. 90); Rose, p. 89. “Like a hunter”: Q. by Nivola.
New studio for Lee: Ronald Stein: This two-room shack, enlarged, eventually became Stein’s house. See, to contrary, Rose, p. 100: “Until his death [Pollock] remained her greatest—virtually her only—supporter, always encouraging her to work and praising it to others.” Although Krasner later condoned revisionist history of this sort, she never made the arguments herself: “Although Lee Pollock had confidence in the quality of her own work, she never thought of it in the same terms as those in which she thought of Jackson’s … she thought of Jackson as a genius”; Friedman, JP, pp. 220–21. Berating collage: Marca-Relli. “Jackson didn’t pay”: Q. in Potter, p. 202. Eleanor Ward’s visit: Solomon, p. 245. There was a heated exchange between Ward and Krasner over who would select the paintings for the show; see Ward, q. in Potter, p. 202. “Can you imagine”: JP, q. by Ward, q. in Potter, p. 174. Lee asking for glue; “He doesn’t want”: Cile Downs (Lord), q. in Potter, pp. 202–03.
Former horse stables: Gruen, p. 42. Favorable reception of Lee’s show: LK, lecture, Columbia International Affairs Building, Oct. 5, 1983; SMP to CCP, Oct. 17, 1955: “Lee’s show is over Jack said it was very well received.” “Glowing”: Ronald Stein. Krasner’s recollection of the incident was characteristically sanitized. Krasner (q. in Glueck, “Krasner and Pollock, p. 61) described JP as “proud as a peacock” at the Stable Gallery show. “Wraithlike”: Ward, q. in Potter, p. 209. “What you need”: Q. by Ward, q. in Potter, p. 209. “Fled in terror”: Q. in Potter, p. 209. Jackson’s show: “15 Years of JP,” Nov. 28–Dec. 31. Pressing ahead with show; Jackson’s apprehensions: Friedman, JP, p. 210; Potter, p. 226. Paintings on ceiling: JP and Krasner were apparently surprised, then amused, by this unorthodox mounting technique; Krauss, “Contra Carmean,” p. 26. White Light: OC&T 380, II, pp. 222–23. Search: OC&T 382, II, pp. 226–27. Search possibly old painting: It was originally signed on the lower right side, indicating a vertical composition. JP later removed his first name and date and reinscribed the painting in the lower left corner. “Gruff, turgid”: Preston, “Among Current Shows.” Art News: T[yler], “Reviews and Previews,” p. 53. “A Pollock painting”: Leo Steinberg, “Month in Review,” pp.
43–44. “The bush-bearded”; “imitating”: [Eliot], “The Champ,” p. 64. “Pollock’s one big”: [Eliot], “The Champ,” p. 66. “Jack the Dripper”: [Eliot], “The Wild Ones,” pp. 70, 75. “Caused Jackson”: Potter, p. 227.
Lee’s modesty: Friedman, JP, pp. 220–21: She spoke defensively of her work to JP, when she spoke of it at all. Tender love gone: Brach. Lee retreating: See Cile Downs (Lord), q. in Potter, p. 202. Twin beds: Kligman; see Kligman, p. 106. “Remember the Russians”: Dragon. Talk of divorce: LK, q. by Cile Lord. JP, q. by Friedman and CG. “One foot”: Cynthia Cole. Charles and Elizabeth separating: They had to marry officially before they could divorce officially; McCoy. “Without Lee”: Q. by Joan Ward, q. in Potter, p. 175. “Dissolving the marriage”: LK, q. by Applehof. “Jackson and I”: Q. in Rose, p. 98.
Car racing incident: Ronald Stein. Refused more than two drinks: Bartender of Sam’s, int. by Shorthall, Nov. 9, 1959. “He was having”: Int. by Shorthall, Nov. 9, 1959. Christmas Eve in jail: Bartender of Sam’s, int. by Shorthall, Nov. 9, 1959. It is reported (by Edward Hults, q. in Potter, p. 144) that JP threw a brick through the window, but we choose instead to follow the reports of firsthand witnesses and participants to the Life interviewer four years after the event. “You cannot”: Q. by LK, q. in Gruen, p. 232. “A man’s life”: Q. in Friedman, JP, p. xvi. In his last public statement, in June 1956, he reiterated his belief that “painting is a state of being. Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is”; OC&T IV, p. 275. “Setting the stage”: LK.
“Like a jet”: Potter, p. 164. “So the studio”: Q. by Marca-Relli, q. in Friedman, JP, p. 214. Janis recommending removal of paintings: Janis, q. in Potter, p. 164. “Let them burn”: Marca-Relli. Jackson fearing empty space: Marca-Relli, recalling JP. Paintings remaining: Friedman, JP, pp. 214–15. When JP complained to Newman that people were bothering him by coming to the studio and wanting to see his work, Newman suggested that he get a lock. JP did so (they had to break it after his death), but rather than helping him get back to work, it may only have symbolized the end of his productivity; Newman, int. by Shorthall, Nov. 9, 1959.
Marca-Relli urging big painting: Marca-Relli. Heller tried to cheer JP up with the story of the composer Arnold Shoenberg; “I said, ‘You aren’t the only one, Jackson,’” Heller played two pieces by Shoenberg and then told JP that ten years had elapsed between them: “Ten years! Think of that. Ten fucking years.” “All part of trying”; “were forgotten”: Cile Downs (Lord), q. in Potter, p. 214. Working with clay: Kadish. Lee pointing to pile of iron: LK, q. in DP&G, “Who Was JP?” p. 51. Time for experimenting: LK. Lee starting his canvases: Marca-Relli. Three categories: Cile Lord. In a way, the efforts to “get Jackson working again” (CG) only confirmed his worst fears: that his only purpose in life, his only value, was in his art. Only a few friends, like Carone, took the more sympathetic view that “Jackson’s life had value outside his art. … He had already made his revolutionary statement. … He had no apologies to make.”
“Sort of the outlines”: Harry Jackson. “With the figures”: Marca-Relli. Seen as late as summer: Sterne. Paintings destroyed: None of the paintings are in OC&T, and no one has suggested a plausible explanation for their disappearance other than that they were destroyed—either during JP’s lifetime or afterward. If they were destroyed after JP’s death, it must have been with Krasner’s approval. Given her loving protection of every doodle, no matter how inconsequential (see, e.g., OC&T 871–78, III, pp. 333–37), it seems far more likely that JP destroyed them himself.
Avoiding hard liquor: CG. Fifty pounds: Estimate by LK. Hiding condition from family: Del Pilar; Kadish; see, e.g., SMP to FLP, MLP, and Jonathan, Nov. 30, 1951. Description of Jackson: De Nagy; Tony Smith, q. in DP&G, “Who Was JP?” p. 53. Trucks and trays: Friedman, JP, p. 227. Lightning: LK. Unable to concentrate: Little; see also Friedman, JP, p. xvii. Hepatitis: Pearce. Cirrhosis: Kligman: His family knew about the cirrhosis. Lee feeling she was target for arrows: Marca-Relli; Harris, int. by Shorthall, Nov. 9, 1959. Barricaded in studio: See Friedman, JP, p. 226. “Obviously experimenting”: Ossorio, q. in Potter, p. 186. “For God’s sake”: Q. by Ossorio, q. in Potter, pp. 185–86. Jumping out of taxi: Friedman; see also Friedman, Almost a Life, p. 104. “Not knowing”: Friedman, JP, p. 220. Two years’ probation: East Hampton Town Police, Police Log, Dec. 24, 1953. Near-accident: Joe Liss: JP knocked down a row of mailboxes. “God, I was scared”: Q. by Cile Lord.
“Old Grizzly”: Confirmed by Sheridan Lord. Jackson greeted at Cedar: Friedman, JP, p. xviii. Making room: Friedman, JP, p. xviii; Almost a Life, p. 28. Buying him drinks: Friedman, JP, p. xix. Touching for luck: Friedman, JP, pp. xvii, xix. “There’s Jackson!”: Larry Rivers, q. in Warhol and Hackett, p. 14. “You should have been”: Q. by Lassaw. Honest deference: Friedman. Bear-baiting: CG. “Nauseating”: Kligman, p. 45. “Who’s the greatest”: Bunce; see also Castelli; Cherry. Ibram Lassaw: “In our culture, drinking made you a hero. Fitzgerald did it. Hemingway did it.”
“You wouldn’t know”: Q. in Potter, p. 194. “If the audience”: Q. by Zogbaum. Playing to cowboy image; boots: Brooks. Histrionics: Marca-Relli: “He came over and said, ‘You call yourself a painter?’ That was his usual approach. And I said, ‘Jackson, I’m your friend,’ and he said, ‘That’s right, that’s right,’ and went on to the next guy: ‘You call yourself a painter?’” “How do you know”: Q. by Carone. Fight with de Kooning: Gruen, pp. 228–29. “Hit an artist?”: Q. in Gruen, p. 229. “That son of a bitch”: Q. by Carone. “You hurt his feelings”: Q. by Hopkins. Sale of Blue Poles: The date of the sale of Blue Poles—from which JP earned $4,000—has been reported as both 1954 and 1955. Because Tony Smith had a role in the sale, it must have occurred sometime after Smith’s return from Europe in May 1955. Heller and Brach looked at the painting in JP’s studio in early spring 1955. Therefore, the sale was probably made in summer or fall of that year. “JP”: Q. by Heller. “One of the boys”: Int. by Shorthall, Nov. 9, 1959.
Recoveries: Marca-Relli. Watching Bogart: Marca-Relli. Watching Dean: Southgate. Drive to power station: Jane Smith. Blake cutting off contact: Blake, q. in Potter, p. 205. Larkins cutting off contact: Lawrence Larkin, q. in Potter, p. 205. Lisses cutting off contact: Millie Liss. Barbara Hale barring him: Robert Beverly Hale. Hempstead keeping address secret: Hempstead. Finding Carone house: Eleanor Ward, q. in Potter, p. 192. Description of Carone: Jenkins. “If you painted”: Q. by Carone. “Say that again”: Q. by Carone. “I don’t teach art”: Carone. Offer of trade: Carone’s wife, Adele Callaway: “Nick didn’t take him up on it, though. He thought it would be mercenary.”
Jackson at Davie show: Viviano. Desperate: Ashton, q. in Potter, p. 220. Lost at Glasco show: Viviano. “Has been”: Q. by Motherwell, q. in Potter, p. 220. “He just took it”: Q. in Potter, p. 220; see account of same incident in “JP: An Artists’ Symposium, Part I,” p. 29. Carone asking about Greenberg: Carone. “Dear Jack”: Still to JP, Dec. 3, 1955. Jackson crying; “Beyond being comforted”: Friedman. “A terrible state”: Q. by Friedman. After receiving the catalogue and the invitation, Still wrote JP, Dec. 21, 1955, not exactly apologizing, but trying to normalize relations.
Joint celebration with Newman: Annalee Newman, int. by Peretz. Newman seeing Jackson weekly: Barnett Newman, int. by Shorthall, Nov. 9, 1959: The meetings were at the Cedar. Newman arguing against celebration: Annalee Newman, int. by Peretz: He said the car needed new points and it was too cold to get them. The Magic Flute; “getting away”; “back to the west”; “just a dream”: Barnett Newman, int. by Shorthall, Nov. 9, 1959. Smiths visiting Springs: Jane Smith. “[Jackson] couldn’t imagine”: Q. in DP&G, “Who Was JP?” p. 54. “Threw a little”: Annalee Newman, int. by Peretz. Jackson’s solo visit to Smiths: Jane Smith. Sculpture: The sculpture, about two feet by two feet, was described by and is currently in the possession of Jane Smith.
Setting mattress on fire: Shibley. Meerts cooling to Jackson: Cherry. Jackson at Guston’s party
: Robert Motherwell, q. in “JP,” p. 29. Trying to throw Guston out window: Ashton, who thinks the party was at Mercedes Matter’s “stable garage on MacDougal Alley”; see also Potter, p. 226. “Only one man”: Q. by Carone. Castelli’s town house: 4 East Seventy-seventh Street. “The great Jackson”: Gorchov. Jackson abusing Graham’s paint supplies: Gorchov; Mayer; Wilcox. “How dare you”; “betrayed”: Q. by Gorchov. Visit by Harry Jackson; “very mean”: Jackson. Life feature on Harry Jackson: The article appeared on July 9, 1956. “I’m a fucking phony”: Q. in Kligman, p. 129. “Crocodile tears”: Q. in Potter, p. 223. “Isn’t that a great painting?”: Q. by Abel. “If five people”: Q. by Jenkins.
Proliferating galleries: Naifeh, p. 81: The number of galleries nearly doubled between 1955 and 1965. “Gilt-edged”: Hodgins and Lesley, “The Great International Art Market: I,” p. 150. “Investments for the future”; “tyro collector”: Hodgins and Lesley, “The Great International Art Market: I,” p. 152. Success of “revolution”: Brach, on the second generation: “They may have worn workers’ caps and peasant boots, but they were all the sons of Red Army generals and went to the best schools”; see Brach, “Postscript,” p. 32. “Selling out”; “stealing his ideas”: Ferber. “Merchandise”: Rothko, q. by Bultman, who lived on the same Upper East Side block as Rothko. “The fellowship”; “crass young”: Seldes, p. 36. Still backdating works: CG: “Both Newman and Still backdated their paintings to make themselves more important. That’s how dumb they were. They thought they could get away with it.” Greenberg a dealer: A consultant to French & Co; CG.
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