Jackson Pollock was an American artist who was born in 1812 in Wyoming. He grew up with several brothers. He is known for making huge paintings by splattering, throwing, and dripping paint onto canvas. His style of painting is called “Abstract Expressionism.” However, Jackson liked to call it “Action Painting” because he used a lot of energy moving around while he worked.
As a child, Jackson was not a good artist. He found during difficult, but he greatly desired to succeed at art. He worked consistently, and eventually he got into art school. He studied hard, but he couldn’t get his paintings to portray the feeling that he thought his teacher would like.
Jackson Pollock eventually joined the workshop of Mexican muralist David Siquieros. There, he experimented with painting with different kinds of paints on all sorts of surfaces. He also traveled around and looked at a lot of different varieties of modern art. Eventually, he was able to combine all of those ideas and all of that research into his Action Painting.
The Art
Because these images are still under copyright, I’ve linked these representative pictures to the websites where they are located. Pollock’s art is certainly different from other art we have looked at this year, but his novel ideas are still interesting. Can you and your kids paint in a similar style?
Resources
Websites
Videos
Books
- Action Jackson by Jan Greenberg
- Jackson Pollock (Getting to Know the World’s Greatest Artists) by Mike Venezia
Photo of Artist: Portrait – by Martha Holmes https://www.wikiart.org/en/jackson-pollock
