Читать книгу Pollock - Donald Wigal - Страница 20

In 1922, Jackson’s father moved the family again to another farm at Orland, California. The next year they moved to a farm near Phoenix, Arizona. Jackson attended the Monroe Elementary School there, but he stayed for only a few weeks. He visited Native American reservations with his brothers for the first time. Soon thereafter he was initiated into the traditions of Indian culture. He saw how the native artists integrated raw materials into their painting and other art. Their works were typically abstract or at least included abstract designs. Moreover, they worked on areas which were flat to the ground. Eighteen years later Pollock would visit an exhibit titled Indian Art of the United States at The Museum of Modern Art (henceforth referred to as MoMA) where he observed how Navajo artists made sand paintings on the floor. He would refer to both of those experiences ten years later when asked about the origins of his famous technique of gestural painting.

According to New York art reviewer Mark Stevens, a teacher enjoyed asking students what the best abstract art ever made in America was. They would predictably reply, “Pollock.” However, the teacher would correct them, noting, “You forgot the Navajo women.” The teacher was, as Stevens points out, referring to the Indian weavings they did, creating rugs “…as visually powerful as a modernist painting.” (103)

Untitled, 1944. Gouache, ink and wash on paper, 57.1 × 77.8 cm, Private collection.

Untitled (Woman), 1935–1938. Oil on fiberboard, 35.8 × 26.6 cm, Nagashima Museum, Kagoshima City, Japan.

Untitled (Naked Man with a Knife), c.1938–1940. Oil on canvas, 127 × 91.4 cm, Tate Gallery, London.

T.P.’s Boat in Menemsha Pond, c.1934. Oil on metal, 11.7 × 16.2 cm, New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain.

Going West, 1934–1935. Oil on gesso on fibreboard, 38.3 × 52.7 cm, National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington.

In 1924, Picasso was in an abstract period. Piet Mondrian advocated a ‘peripheric’ view, lacking a central point of focus.