[audiobook] Jackson Pollock: A Biography by Deborah Solomon in Arts-Photography

Review

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. I liked a lot the bookBy Edgar RacyHi.I liked a lot the book. but I could not see pictures when the autor write for exemple. " (fig.1). Thats because I am reading in Kindle?Thanks2 of 5 people found the following review helpful. Good Pollock infoBy N. NATALEI liked this book. Ive read a lot about Pollock. but this book had more info about his family and early years than Ive ever seen. It made him a lot more understandable as a person so that I could see him as more than a raging alcoholic. It also refutes some of the Pollock myths such as his peeing in Peggy Guggenheims fireplace at a party. This is a real bio. not just an artists bio.8 of 10 people found the following review helpful. Escaping the limits of artBy EdwardArt historian Deborah Solomon (shes having a biography of Norman Rockwell published this year) brought out in 1987 this life of the complicated and extremely creative Jackson Pollock. One thing about Solomon: shes serious. It was she who in 2010 hosted an interview at the 92nd Street Y with the comedian/author Steve Martin. who had just written a novel set in the art world. During the program Solomon received a note (on stage!) from the Y administration informing her that the paying audience was restless: why was she asking Martin questions about art. why wasnt she asking him questions about sitcoms and the Oscars? A couple of days later the Y was castigated by Solomon when it offered refunds to its trivia-obsessed subscribers. Anyone expecting a trivial exposeacute; of Pollocks controversial life should probably avoid "Jackson Pollock". This is an earnest biography of the abstract expressionist from his birth in Wyoming in 1912 to his violent death in 1956 on Long Island. An alcoholic. Pollock could be belligerent and cruelly insulting. even to his wife. the artist Lee Krasner; and it was excessive alcohol that caused his death in a car crash at the age of 44. At other times he could be surprisingly meek. When the portable mural he created for Peggy Guggenheims East Side apartment proved too long. Marcel Duchamp suggested they simply cut off 8". and Pollock didnt explode but calmly acquiesced. (About that famous mural. which is now at the University of Iowa: a recent theory asserts that the totemic figures marching across the canvas are actually stylized letters spelling out Pollocks name.) Pollock was the proteacute;geacute; of Thomas Hart Benton and some of his early paintings show Bentons influence. Later Benton. who was strictly representational. felt estranged from his former pupil and the "drip" paintings. such as "No. 5. 1948". which evidently is now privately owned. Pollock also flirted briefly with Surrealism. creating beauties like the San Francisco MOMAs "Guardians of the Secret". (It should be pointed out that this book is first and foremost a biography. so none of the plates are in color.) The narrative abounds in stories of the Forties and Fifties art world: Stuart Davis loathed Bentons regionalism. saying it was appropriate only for a Fascist state; and when Andreacute; Breton came to New York for the duration of World War II he didnt conceal his contempt for Americas lack of culture. flatly refusing to learn English. But of primary importance is Pollock himself: " ... he did away with recognizable imagery in favor of direct expression ... He turned to abstraction not to define the limits of art but to escape them." The shallow audiences at the Y may be bored by all this. but art enthusiasts will enjoy its frank depiction not only of Pollocks life but of the world in which he worked.