Jackson Pollock

Jackson Pollock was an American painter who was a leading exponent of Abstract Expressionism, an art movement characterized by the free-associative gestures in paint sometimes referred to as “action painting.”

Jackson Pollock is best known for his action paintings and Abstract Expressionist works. For these pieces, many made during his “poured” period, Pollock dripped paint onto canvas to convey the emotion of movement. He explored themes including surrealist navigation of the unconscious and Jungian symbolism. His early work depicts landscapes and figures with surrealist elements.

Jackson Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming, on January 28, 1912. His family lived there for 11 months after his birth, and Pollock never returned to the town. He grew up in California and Arizona, where his father worked on a string of unprofitable truck farms.

Jackson Pollock lived in New York after moving there in 1930 to study art. He lived with his brother Charles and later in an apartment in Greenwich Village with his brother Sanford and Sanford’s wife. When he married in 1945, Pollock moved to Long Island, where he lived for the rest of his life.

Jackson Pollock died in a car crash in the summer of 1956 at age 44. He was driving under the influence of alcohol and was killed after he was thrown from the vehicle. His lover, artist Ruth Kligman, was the only survivor of the accident.