One of five brothers, Pollock was born in Wyoming, US, and grew up in Arizona and California. His father was a farmer and later a land surveyor, and as a boy, while on surveying trips with his father, Pollock became familiar with indigenous American culture. At the age of 18, he followed his brother Charles to New York, where they both joined the Art Students’ League and were taught by the painter Thomas Hart Benton (1889–1975). Briefly during the 1930s, Pollock’s work reflected Benton’s, but his own ideas soon took over. A more lasting influence however, was Benton’s persona as a hard drinker and within six years, Pollock was being treated for alcoholism.
In his early art, Pollock also showed influences of Mexican Muralism and Surrealism. The Depression years were extremely difficult for him and from 1935 he worked for the WPA Federal Art Project; a program that was created to employ out-of-work artists and to provide art for schools, hospitals and libraries. When the project ended in 1942, Pollock’s painting style developed from some representation to a completely abstract approach of swirling, colored lines. He first received critical attention when his paintings were shown in an exhibition in New York in 1943, alongside works by Picasso.
By 1945 Pollock began creating his most original and influential paintings of large, intricately interwoven patterns of spilled and spattered paint whose subject and expressive content became one and the same thing—the act of painting. Even his technique was unconventional. He spread a length of unprimed canvas on the floor and tacked it on to boards rather than stretching it over a frame on an easel. He said: ‘On the floor, I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more a part of the painting, since this way I can walk round it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting.’ He abandoned brushes, splashing or pouring the paint directly on to the canvas, as he wanted nothing to come between him and the work. He aimed to express his feelings rather than illustrate them—so his emotions would emerge as he applied the paint. In rejecting references to the outside world, viewers were free to interpret the works as they preferred. In 1945, he married the artist Lee Krasner (1908–84) who became an important influence. In 1956, he gained the nickname “Jack the Dripper,” and he achieved fame, or notoriety, but was deeply insecure and needed constant reassurance. Pollock’s premature death in a car crash enhanced his image as one of the legends of modern art.
Key Works
Male and Female 1942, PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART, PHILADELPHIA, PA, US
Blue (Moby Dick) c.1943, OHARA MUSEUM OF ART, KURASHIKI, JAPAN
Lavender Mist, Number 1 1950, NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, WASHINGTON, DC, US
Autumn Rhythm 1950, METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK, USA
Blue Poles 1952, THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA
LICHTENSTEIN
1923–1997 • POP ART
Thinking of Him
1963 MAGNA ON CANVAS
172.7 × 172.7 CM (68 × 68 IN)
YALE UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY, NEW HAVEN, CT, US
Lichtenstein studied the dynamic compositions of commercial and mass-produced comic strips and reproduced his own large, painted versions in precise, bold detail featuring dots that emulate printing techniques. This is a cheerful celebration of the sentimentality of many comic strip stories of the era.
One of the best-known Pop artists, Roy Lichtenstein’s distinctive, over-sized comic book images exploited the post-war surge in mass-production, popular advertising and comics in an ironic, bold style.
Lichtenstein was born in New York into an upper-middle-class American-Jewish family. Although he had been just as interested in jazz as in art, when he was 16, he enrolled for summer classes at the Art Students’ League. The following year, in 1940, he began at the School of Fine Arts at Ohio State University, but his studies were interrupted by World War II, when he was drafted into the army from 1943 for three years. On his return, he graduated in 1946, and then worked as an art instructor. In 1949 he received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Ohio State University and two years later, he had his first solo painting exhibition in New York and then moved to Cleveland. Although he stayed in Cleveland for six years, he traveled back to New York frequently.
Using various materials including enameled metal, brass and plastics, he continued to produce his own artwork while also working occasionally as an engineering draftsman and a window dresser. At that time his painting style derived mainly from Abstract Expressionism, but also featured elements of Cubism and Expressionism. In 1960 he met several artists who were exploring new ideas based on popular culture, which made art more accessible to the general public. He became interested in this new “Pop art,” and explored ways of expressing it. Then one day his son pointed to a Mickey Mouse comic and said, “I bet you can’t paint as well as that.” Rising to the challenge, in 1961 Lichtenstein painted several enlarged comic book characters with slight changes, derived from the appearance of commercial printing.
Gradually he developed his style, using dramatic compositions, bright blocks of color, Benday dots, lettering and speech balloons. He said: “Art relates to perception, not nature.” He did not stick to comic-book images however, but used the style to represent all kinds of subjects, including landscapes, Chinese-style imagery, figures, art of the past and even Art Deco designs. Not restricting himself to painting, he even explored these same concepts in sculpture. Despite strong criticism at the time about his work being vacuous, soon critics began to see that he was not merely imitating subjects, but commenting on how the mass media portray them. His bold approach made him one of the leading figures of the Pop art movement and had a powerful influence on modern art and graphic design.
Key Works
Girl with a Beach Ball 1961, THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK, US
Blam 1962, YALE UNIVERSITY, NEW HAVEN, CT, US
Takka Takka 1962, MUSEUM LUDWIG, COLOGNE, GERMANY
Whaam! 1963, TATE MODERN, LONDON, UK
Drowning Girl 1963, THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK, US
WARHOL
1928–1987 • POP ART
Marilyn
1967 SCREENPRINT (FROM A PORTFOLIO OF TEN)
91.5 × 91.5 CM (36 × 36 IN)
MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK, US
After her death in 1962, Warhol made more than 20 screenprint portraits with deliberate imperfections in the printing of Marilyn Monroe, based on a 1953 publicity photo. The media’s focus on her since her death epitomized his views about the cult of celebrity.
Originally a successful commercial artist, Andy Warhol was a leading Pop artist, who became internationally recognized as much for his flamboyant lifestyle as for his artwork.
Born Andrew Warhola in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US, the third son of Czechoslovakian immigrants, at the age of nine Warhol contracted an unpleasant childhood illness which left him with some facial disfigurement. This made him quite nervous, detached from other children, and a hypochondriac.
He grew up drawing, listening to the radio and collecting pictures of film stars. At 14, he studied art appreciation and commercial art at Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh.