Untitled
Jackson POLLOCK: artist
During his brief and brilliant career, Pollock produced approximately 700 works on paper in a variety of traditional drawing mediums—pencil, ink, watercolour, gouache, collage, and towards the end of his life, enamel paint. By 1948, Pollock had adapted his drip technique, developed in his paintings over 1946-1947, to his works on paper so that the stylistic development of his drawings mirrors that of his paintings. Pollock used the paper, like the canvas, as a horizontal surface to facilitate the dripping, pouring and splattering of pools of paint, gouache or ink.
Seeking to make line drawing fulfil the requirements of painting to achieve a total visual effect, Pollock’s pen and ink drawings became more and more ‘a painterly tangle’, distilling a totally abstract linear concept, free of associative ideas. This work on paper belongs to the final group of his drawings from 1950-1952 which specifically exploited the qualities of working with fluid mediums on porous handmade paper, creating lyrical compositions of calligraphic forms on open light grounds.
The art of handmade paper was revived in the USA by Douglas Howell and Pollock was one of several artists who commissioned Howell to make one-off, unsized sheets with distinctive tints and textures. The paper’s softness, low-relief surface and unpredictable absorbency enabled watercolour and ink to spread and blur, similar to the full-bodied quality of paint.
Seeking to make line drawing fulfil the requirements of painting to achieve a total visual effect, Pollock’s pen and ink drawings became more and more ‘a painterly tangle’, distilling a totally abstract linear concept, free of associative ideas. This work on paper belongs to the final group of his drawings from 1950-1952 which specifically exploited the qualities of working with fluid mediums on porous handmade paper, creating lyrical compositions of calligraphic forms on open light grounds.
The art of handmade paper was revived in the USA by Douglas Howell and Pollock was one of several artists who commissioned Howell to make one-off, unsized sheets with distinctive tints and textures. The paper’s softness, low-relief surface and unpredictable absorbency enabled watercolour and ink to spread and blur, similar to the full-bodied quality of paint.
Title
Untitled
Artist/Maker and role
Jackson POLLOCK: artist
Date
1951
Medium
coloured inks on howell waterleaf paper
Measurements
45.5 x 55.8 cm (irregular)
Credit line
Purchased 1983
© Jackson Pollock. Licensed by VISCOPY, 2008
The State Art Collection, The Art Gallery of Western Australia
Accession number
1983/0D30