Paul Jackson Pollock (/ˈpɒlək/; January 28, 1912 – August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was well known for his unique style of drip painting.
During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety; he was a major artist of his generation. Regarded as reclusive, he had a volatile personality and struggled with alcoholism for most of his life. In 1945, he married the artist Lee Krasner, who became an important influence on his career and on his legacy.
Pollock died at the age of 44 in an alcohol-related single-car accident when he was driving. In December 1956, four months after his death, Pollock was given a memorial retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. A larger, more comprehensive exhibition of his work was held there in 1967. In 1998 and 1999, his work was honoured with large-scale retrospective exhibitions at MoMA and at The Tate in London.
KeyWords
abstract
describes a type of painting, drawing or sculpture which tries to represent the real or imagined qualities of objects or people by using shapes, lines and colour, and does not try to show their outer appearance as it would be seen in a photograph: abstract art; an abstract painter
Expressionism
a style of art, music or writing, found particularly in the 1900s, which expresses people's states of mind
movement
a group of people with a particular set of aims: the women's movement; a movement to stop animals being killed for their furdrip
a drop of liquid: drips of paint/sweatnotoriety
the state of being famous for something bad: He achieved/gained notoriety for murdering eleven women in the north of England.recluse
a person who lives alone and avoids going outside or talking to other people: He is a millionaire recluse who refuses to give interviews.volatile
likely to change suddenly and unexpectedly or suddenly become violent or angry: Food and fuel prices are very volatile in a war situation. The situation was made more volatile by the fact that people had been drinking a lot of alcohol.
He had a rather volatile temper and can't have been easy to live with
single-car accident
A single-vehicle collision or single-vehicle accident is a type of road traffic collision in which only the one vehicle is involved. Included in this category are run-off-road collisions, collisions with fallen rocks or debris in the road, rollover crashes within the roadway, and collisions with animals.
retrospective
relating to or thinking about the past: a retrospective album of solo Freddie Mercury tracks
The film is a look back into the life of an extraordinary man, a man who has fittingly been called “an artist dedicated to concealment, a celebrity who nobody knew.” As he struggled with self-doubt, engaging in a lonely tug-of-war between needing to express himself and wanting to shut the world out, Pollock began a downward spiral.
