‘Jack The Dripper’ Paintings Sell For Millions

Jackson Pollock in front of Summertime: Number 9A for Life magazine, 1949 | Image source: kazoart.com

August 11, 1956 — Jackson Pollock, hailed in his time as the “greatest painter alive”, died on this day when he crashed his Oldsmobile convertible into a tree while driving at high speed under the influence of alcohol.

The accident happened less than a mile from his home in Long Island, New York. He was 44.

Always controversial, Pollock led a troubled short life, struggling for years with alcoholism, expelled from two high schools during his formative years, and later living for a while in near poverty.

So it was perhaps inevitable that his work would be controversial. He would go on to become a member of New York’s avant-garde “abstract expressionist” movement – known for breaking away from realism in painting.

Not for him the traditional canvas held on an easel; instead he would lay a large canvas on the floor and splatter household paint on it, or pour the paint directly from a can using a stick. He would then comb through the canvases with brushes and sticks to create different effects.

But that wasn’t all; Pollock used a technique called Action Painting to create his works. He would often stand over the canvas or dance around it. At the same time, he would drip or pour paint from above.

Critics were not slow to express their contempt. Reynold’s News, a weekly newspaper in the UK, declared in 1959: "This is not art – it’s a joke in bad taste.”

American art critic Robert Coates described Pollock's works as "mere unorganized explosions of random energy, and therefore meaningless”. And Time magazine derogatively named him “Jack the Dripper.”

But in 1950 Pollock declared: “New arts need new techniques. The modern artist cannot express this age – the airplane, the atom bomb, the radio, in the old forms of the Renaissance or of any other past culture.”

And he stopped giving his works a title, explaining: “[The viewer should] look passively and try to receive what the painting has to offer and not bring a subject matter or preconceived idea of what they are to be looking for."

His wife said: "He used to give his pictures conventional titles but now he simply numbers them. Numbers are neutral. They make people look at a picture for what it is – pure painting."

A newspaper may have dismissed his art as a joke, but the last laugh would have gone to Pollock. His work from the “drip period” has sold for hundreds of millions of dollars.

His No. 5, 1948 sold for $140 million. And when his Number 17A (1948) sold in 2015 for $200 million it became one of the top five most expensive works of art of all time. In September 2022, it was ranked fifth on the list of the world’s most expensive paintings.

According to the artdex.com website, “when it comes to Pollock’s work, either you get it, or you don’t. Detractors would argue that his pieces can easily be replicated by a toddler or even a chimp, insinuating that anyone with the dexterity to hold a brush could create an abstract work of art.

“However, those who have tried to recreate a composition that evokes Pollock quickly discover that the technique requires focus, purpose, and technical knowledge of how paint flows, splashes, and hits the canvas.

“. . . There was precision with each flick of Pollock’s wrist as he released paint onto a canvas. There was certainly nothing random nor accidental about each spill and splatter. And whether you believe his work was genius or garbage, the fact remains that he is widely recognized as one of the most important artists of his time.”

In her 2012 book, Why Your Five Year Old Could Not Have Done That, artist and author Susie Hodge wrote: “Since he first produced paintings using his ‘drip’ technique, with infantile-looking splashes and squiggles, Pollock’s work has been compared to the scribbles of young children.

“[But though his] work might initially appear to be a childish scrawl, it actually conveys the preoccupations of the time.”

(Paul) Jackson Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming, on January 28, 1912. His family lived there for 11 months after his birth, but Pollock never returned to the town. He grew up in California and Arizona, then moved to New York in 1930 to study art, living with his brother Charles and later in an apartment in Greenwich Village.

He earned a modest living working for the Federal Art Project, one of the New Deal initiatives brought in by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. While doing so he met acclaimed gallerist and collector Peggy Guggenheim who gave him his first solo show in 1943.

She also commissioned Pollock to complete a monumental canvas for her Manhattan home. He used the money from the commission to buy a farmhouse on Long Island and shortly after moving there he and fellow painter Lee Krasner were married. She was considered to be a calming and stabilising force in his life.

Although Pollock's works have been displayed in renowned galleries and institutions around the world and have sold in total for hundreds of millions of dollard, he never sold a painting for more than $10,000 in his lifetime and was often hard-pressed for cash.

His No. 5, 1948 sold for $140 million. And when in 2015 his Number 17A (1948) sold for $200 million it became one of the top five most expensive works of art of all time.

* Pollock created many of his works in an outbuilding of his home, so insects would sometimes get stuck on his wet canvases. In New York’s Museum of Modern Art his One: Number 31, 1950 still has a fly present, encased in paint. In 2004, this work was ranked the eighth most influential piece of modern art in a poll of 500 artists, curators, critics, and dealers.

Published: July 31, 2023
Updated: August 13, 2023