1940's The Arts | "Jackson Pollock: Is He the Greatest Living Painter in the United States?"

Magazine article

By: Life

Date: August 8, 1949

Source: "Jackson Pollock: Is He the Greatest Living Painter in the United States?" Life, August 8, 1949, 42–45.

About the Artist: Jackson Pollock (1912–1956), born in Cody, Wyoming, was the leading painter of the abstract expressionism school. In 1930, he moved to Greenwich Village in New York City. Under the influence of surrealism and psychoanalytic therapy, he began to develop his own notions of artistic expression, which led to the drip technique. In 1945, he married Lee Krasner, another abstract expressionist painter. He was killed in an automobile accident in 1956.

Introduction

At the Art Students League in New York, Jackson Pollock studied under Thomas Hart Benton, one of the leading regionalists among American painters. Although a conservative painter, Benton was famous for twisting muscular...