American artist, a painter and exponent of abstract expressionism and, in particular, the form known as “action painting.” Pollack went further, however, and developed his hallmark technique called “drip painting.” He believed that art derived from the unconscious, and one of his early works, “The Moon-Woman Cuts the Circle,” 1943, shows the passionate intensity with which he pursued his personal vision.
Born in Cody, Wyoming, Pollock’s family moved before he was one year old, and he spent his formative years in California and Arizona. In 1930, he moved to New York City where he enrolled at the Art Students League. He studied with his brother’s teacher, the painter Thomas Hart Benton, and in the autumn of 1935, he found a job as an easel painter with the WPA Federal Art Project. With this job providing security through the years of the Great Depression, he concentrated on his art, and in November 1943, his first one-man show was held at the Art of This Century Gallery in New York City. His first wall-size work, “Mural,” was completed in 1943-44. In 1951-52 he painted primarily in black and white, as shown in paintings like “Echo.” He created his last major work, “Portrait and a Dream,” in 1953.
He married Lee Krasner, a painter, in 1945.
In 1937, he underwent treatment for alcoholism. He suffered a nervous breakdown in 1938 and spent the next three years in treatment with Jungian psychoanalysts. Pollock’s own drawings were integral to these therapy sessions. His health began to deteriorate rapidly in 1953, and he died in an automobile accident on 11 August 1956, East Hampton, New York.
On 16 May 2013 Pollock’s “Number 19” (1948) was sold by Christies for a reported $58,363,750.
Link to Wikipedia biography