Synopses & Reviews
Legendary abstract expressionist painter Jackson Pollock (1912-56) is most famous for the frenetic, highly textured works created through his trademark “drip” technique in which he poured paint from its can directly onto the canvas.
Pollock Matters explores, for the first time, the personal and artistic interrelationship between the notorious artist and noted Swiss-born photographer and graphic designer Herbert Matter.
Published to coincide with an exhibition at Boston Colleges McMullen Museum of Art, Pollock Matters traces a close friendship that spanned almost two decades, beginning in 1936 when the mens future wives, painters Lee Krasner and Mercedes Carles, met after being sent to jail for protesting Works Progress Administration cutbacks. The friendship continued until Pollocks tragic death in an automobile accident in the summer of 1956.
Featuring compelling visual and documentary evidence, including over 150 illustrations, this book demonstrates a critically important chain of influence between two creative individuals not addressed in previous studies of their respective careers. Pollock Matters reveals the crucial role that Herbert Matters technical innovations played in helping to stimulate Pollocks radical artistic conception of “energy made visible.” A previously unknown body of small drip paintings labeled by Matter as “Jackson experimentals” is presented here along with scientific analysis of the works. This volume will be essential reading for anyone seeking an enriched understanding of Jackson Pollocks life and work or the history of abstract painting.
About the Author
Ellen G. Landau is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities at Case Western Reserve University.
Claude Cernuschi is professor of art history at Boston College.
Table of Contents
Director's Preface Nancy Netzer Introduction Claude Cernuschi and Ellen G. Landau Action/Re-Action: The Artistic Friendship of Herbert Matter and Jackson Pollock Ellen G. Landau Jackson Pollock's Vitalism: Herbert Matter and the Vitalist Tradition Jonathan D. Katz Cutting Pollock Down to Size: The Boundaries of the Poured Technique Claude Cernuschi and Andrzej Herczynski Abstract Expressionism and Fractal Geometry Claude Cernuschi, Andrzej Herczynski, and David Martin Scientific Examination of the Paint on Nine Matter Paintings Richard Newman and Michele Derrick Analyzing Jackson Pollock: Scientific Methods and the Study of the Matter Paintings Nicholas Eastaugh What It Says on the Tin: A Preliminary Study of the Set of Paint Cans and the Floor in the Pollock-Krasner Studio Nicholas Eastaugh and Bhavini Gorsia Fingerprinting Jackson Pollock? Peter Paul Biro Appendix I: Notes on Conservation of the Matter PaintingsAppendix II: Chronology of the Relationship of the Matters and Pollocks Prepared with the assistance of Nancy Cohen, Jeffrey Head, and Michael R. Weil, Jr.