Jackson Pollock

Biography

Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) developed his poured enamel method in the late 1940s in his Springs, NY studio, laying supports on the floor and working with industrial paints to record sweeping bodily gestures. His approach—publicized soon after in a 1949 LIFE feature—helped define Abstract Expressionism and reoriented painting toward process and performance [4].

Themes in Their Work

Fate vs. free willMimesis vs. abstraction (truth vs. artifice)Medium reflexivity (art about art)Originality, authorship, and appropriationLabor & workThe sublime & awe

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No. 5, 1948 by Jackson Pollock

No. 5, 1948

Jackson Pollock (1948)

<strong>No. 5, 1948</strong> is a large, floor‑painted field of poured enamel where tangled skeins of black, gray, umber, and bursts of yellow span the entire support. Its <strong>all‑over</strong> structure rejects a central motif, turning the painting into a record of motion and material behavior. The result is a charged surface that reads as both <strong>image and event</strong> <sup>[1]</sup><sup>[2]</sup><sup>[3]</sup>.